Historically high levels of private and public debt coupled with already very low short-term interest rates appear to limit the options for stimulative monetary policy in many advanced economies today. One option that has not yet been considered is monetary financing by central banks to boost...

We study whether the adoption of the Euro and a single monetary policy have brought about a change in the monetary transmission mechanism and between the interactions of monetary policy, fiscal policy and financial stress in the Euro area. We find that the stylized facts of monetary transmission...

The present paper contains a brief presentation and analysis, in a historical perspective through the lens of the recent major crises, of the legal framework governing the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as well as current developments and challenges ahead. It is structured in three...

Employing huge economic stimulus packages was a common response of many policy leaders during the past financial crisis. In Germany for instance, the government enacted two fiscal packages with an overall volume of approximately 80 billion Euros. On the other hand, the distortions in the banking...

This paper explores the potential effectiveness of the ECBś Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program in safeguarding an appropriate monetary policy transmission. Since the program aims at manipulating bank lending rates by conducting sovereign bond purchases on secondary markets, a stable...

This paper explores the potential effectiveness of the ECB's Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program in safeguarding an appropriate monetary policy transmission. Since the program aims at manipulating bank lending rates by conducting sovereign bond purchases on secondary markets, a stable...

In response to the Global Financial Crisis, central banks engaged in large-scale asset purchases funded by the issuance of reserves. These "unconventional" policies continued during the pandemic, so that by 2022 central banks' balance sheets had grown up to ten-fold. As a result of rapidly...

Our chapter reviews positive and normative issues in the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy, with an emphasis on how views on policy coordination have changed over the last 25 five years. On the positive side, noncooperative games between a government and its central bank have given...

We evaluate proposals for independent fiscal authority put forward as a solution to excessive public spending. Our main conclusion is that moving the responsibility to set broad measures of fiscal policy from the hands of government to an independent fiscal council is not necessarily welfare...