The striking turnaround in the Netherlands' economic performance over the past decade and a half has attracted widespread attention. Emerging from deep recession and high unemployment in the early 1980s, the economy shifted to a pace of growth more rapid than that in neighboring economies, and...

Following Estrella and Hardouvelis (1991) and Estrella and Mishkin (1995a, b), we study the ability of the term structure to predict recessions in eight countries. The results are four-fold. First, the yield curve predicts future recessions in all countries. Second, term spreads forecast...

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB’s objectives is far from perfect. Both a...

Strengthening potential output is high on the agenda for economic policy in the European Union. While there is widespread agreement that structural policies have a positive impact on long-term growth, there is a controversial discussion whether coordination of macroeconomic policies can...

The main characteristic of the implementation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) is the transition from various national currencies to the Euro, the common European currency. A final fixing of the individual bilateral exchange rates of all European countries involved in the Monetary Union...