We investigate the impact of EMU on macroeconomic volatility. The volatilities of inflation and nominal interest rates have declined, as has, more importantly, the volatility of real consumption growth. Since global volatility has fallen for reasons unrelated to EMU (the great moderation), we...

We study how households adjust their medium-term inflation expectations under the new ECB inflation targeting strategy. Survey respondents make little difference between the previous strategy of targeting inflation rates close to but below 2% and the new strategy with a 2% point target....

After the inception of the euro, the real economy in most member countries remained dependent on credit by domestic banks, which increasingly funded themselves through cross-border interbank funding. We find that this pattern of 'double-decker' banking integration exposed domestic banks to sharp...

We assess to what extent wage inflation policies in Germany could contribute to an economic rebalancing in the euro area and the rest of the world. We find that a rise in nominal wage inflation has positive short-run effects on inflation and output in Germany and the rest of the euro area. The...

The open economy New Keynesian model with flexible exchange rates postulates that the real exchange rate appreciates in response to an asymmetric negative demand shock in a zero lower bound (ZLB) scenario and exacerbates the adverse macroeconomic effects. However, when monetary policy is able to...

We estimate the effects of a negative asymmetric demand shock on the real exchange rate for the euro area vis-à-vis the United States, Canada, and Japan by state-dependent sign-restricted local projection methods. We find a real depreciation when interest rates are not at the ZLB, but also when...

We study how households adjust their medium-term inflation expectations under the new monetary policy strategy of the ECB. In a representative sample of 7,500 participants of the Bundesbank Online Panel Households, we find that survey respondents make little difference between the previous...