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...

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...

In this paper, we present a set of specific measures to quantify the state and evolution of financial integration in the euro area. Five key markets are considered, namely the money, corporate bond, government bond, credit and equity markets. Building upon the law of one price, we developed two...

Credit claims (or bank loans) represent a large share of the collateral accepted by the Eurosystem in its credit operations in recent years. Hence the techniques and procedures used in the use of credit claims as collateral have become significant elements of the monetary policy implementation...

Taking a cue from the assertion that “loose lips sink markets” (Carmassi and Micossi, 2010), this paper investigates to what extent and why political communication has had an impact on the sovereign bond spreads of selected euro area countries over the German Bund. Drawing on 25,000 news...

Das IW Köln hat im 2. Quartal 2017 den Prognosetest des Zentrums für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) übernommen. Dieses führte seit Anfang 2001 quartalsweise diese Umfrage unter Finanzmarktexperten mit dem Ziel durch, der Öffentlichkeit einen Überblick über die Prognosen der...

Für den IW Financial Expert Survey werden quartalsweise die Volkswirte von Banken und Versicherungen zu ihrer Einschätzung für die kommenden 3 bzw. 6 Monate befragt. Die Auswertung der Prognosen für das 3. Quartal 2016 zeigt, dass die Experten bis zum Jahresende 2017 im Schnitt von höheren...

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...

The paper explains a curious redirection of economic policies that uses the policy framework of Kalecki and Keynes only to undermine it. It does not negate their theory of demand management, but reformulates it to serve the powerful interests of finance in the era of financial globalisation. As...