Islamic finance is one of the most rapidly growing sectors in recent years. During the last decade the global value of Islamic assets has grown at yearly the pace of 10-12 per cent. Sharia compliant products, which are not based on the interest rate, has become popular also in non-Muslim...

The Eurosystem macroeconomic projection exercises are part of the input prepared for the Governing Council’s decision-making meetings. Under the economic analysis pillar of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy, they are a key element in the assessment of economic prospects and of the short to...

This paper reviews the experience of the ECB with the two-tier system for excess reserve remuneration that exempted a portion of banks' excess liquidity (EL) holdings from the negative interest rate of the ECB's deposit facility. The two-tier system aimed to support the bank-based transmission...

Neither a gradually rising carbon tax nor emission trading schemes can ensure that the costs of emitting greenhouse gases, in particular CO2, will steadily rise faster than the general price level. If, e.g., global fossil energy prices decline faster than a carbon tax or the emission permit...

The existing econometric evidence on the relationship between stock indices and real economic activity is inconclusive despite theoretical arguments suggesting a long-term relationship. Previous studies indicate that the link between stock prices and growth became weaker in the 1980s. In this...

The trading of bonds and swaps largely relies on bank dealers as core market-makers. Dealers provide liquidity and trade the instruments with smaller or less active firms, in part by using their own balance sheets for inventory holding or hedging purposes. The reforms carried out in the...

This study identifies five distinctive stages of the current global financial crisis: the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market, spillovers into broader credit market, the liquidity crisis epitomized by the fallout of Northern Rock, Bear Stearns with contagion effects on other financial...

Pessimism determines the experts' predictions for the first and second quarter of 2019 which can be inferred from the downward revisions of the experts' forecasts. Although the experts still expect the yield curve to become steeper, they expect long-term interest rates to increase less compared...

Pessimism determines the experts' predictions for the second and third quarter of 2019 which can be inferred from the downward revisions of the experts' forecasts. All in all, more downward revisions than upward revisions can be found in the forecasts indicating that the experts have interpreted...

Over the last years, prices for European office space have reached new peaks. This naturally provokes discussion about a possible overheating in the market. One approach to assess price development of real estate markets is the so-called "user cost approach". Typically, this approach is applied...