Models on the optimal design of monetary policy typically rely on a social welfare loss function defined over inflation and unemployment. Our estimates of such a function use measures of two different dimensions of well-being that have been distinguished by recent research. The first is...

This paper examines the challenges faced by the European Central Bank since the outbreak of the global financial crisis. From 2008 to 2014, the need to preserve the correct functioning of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and ensure the supply of credit to the private sector stretched...

This paper studies the effect of monetary policy on inflation along the income distribution in several euro area countries. It shows that monetary policy has differential effects and identifies two channels which point in opposite directions. On the one hand, different consumption shares imply...