The very expansive and unconventional monetary policy of the ECB reduced the tensions of the Euro debt crisis at the price of persistently very low interest rates. While the ECB was right to act at the peak of the crisis, the risks of the low-interest rate environment become increasingly...

Using the Consensus Economics dataset with individual expert forecasts from G7 countries we investigate determinants of disagreement (crosssectional dispersion of forecasts) about six key economic indicators. Disagreement about real variables (GDP, consumption, investment and unemployment) has a...

This paper investigates the credit channel in Germany and the United Kingdom. The financial systems of these two countries show substantial structural differences, which leads one to expect that their real sectors respond differently to changes in monetary policy. To the extent that this is the...