This Policy Brief introduces the Gini Trade Index (GTI) as a new trade synthetic key performance indicator capable of capturing the different distribution of trade values across firm characteristics and across countries. The new indicator replicates the well-known features of the traditional...

This essay reflects upon the relationship between the current theory of financial intermediation and real-world practice. Our critical analysis of this theory leads to several building blocks of a new theory of financial intermediation. Current financial intermediation theory builds on the...

Shadow banking, as one of the main sources of financial stability concerns, is the subject of much international debate. In broad terms, shadow banking refers to activities related to credit intermediation and liquidity and maturity transformation that take place outside the regulated banking...

Monetary growth has increased significantly in the euro area in recent years, raising concerns about the risks to price stability. Viewed from a sectoral perspective, this increase reflects to a large extent the deposit holdings of other financial intermediaries (OFIs). This paper presents...

In Europe, the balance between publicly owned and privately owned financialinstitutions varies through time and from country to country. Historically, nationalisations and privatisations have moved the balance backwards and forwards. So has the recent financial crisis. Mathias Schmit, Laurent...

The economic development of the European Union is hampered by insufficient private and public long-term investments. This weakness is seen as a rationale for state intervention, and numerous projects are discussed and implemented to find new ways to mobilize private capital for long-term...

Four major developments have challenged the status quo and reopened the debate on the forms that money will take in the future: 1) use of cash as a medium of exchange has declined; 2) distributed ledger technology (DLT) has led to the emergence of thousands of digital cryptocurrencies; 3) some...

How do central bank digital currencies (CBDC) impact the balance sheets of banks and central banks? To tackle this question empirically, we built a constraint optimisation model that allows for individual banks to choose how to respond to outflows of deposits, based on cost considerations and...