This paper describes concepts and tools behind macroprudential monitoring and the growing importance of macroprudential tools for assessing the stability of financial systems. This paper also employs a macroprudential approach in examining financial soundness and identifying its determinants....

In 1980, seven out of the seventeen Spanish regions were devolved education spending responsibility. Using a difference-in-differences approach, which I show to be particularly credible in this context, I evaluate the long term effect of this reform on human capital. I find no robust evidence to...

In this paper we investigate the possible effects of fiscal tightening in Hungary from two perspectives. First, simulations in an estimated neo-Keynesian model are used to characterise the effects of different scenarios for fiscal consolidations. We show that the composition of fiscal shocks is...

I study the short-term impact of surprise inflation on the primary balance by separating those budgetary items which immediately respond to inflation from non-responding ones. I assume a passive fiscal policy in a one-year horizon; therefore items fully controlled by the central government are...

This paper takes up the issue of the flexibility of inflation targeting regimes, with the specific goal of determining whether the monetary policy of the Bank of England, which has a formal inflation target, has been any less flexible than that of the Federal Reserve, which does not have such a...

While a widespread consensus exists among macroeconomists that the German labour market reforms in 2003-2005 have successfully contributed to the decline of the unemployment rate, critics claim that the reforms led to wage restraint and consequently consumption dampening accompanied by...

Die Staatsanleihekäufe der EZB sind zu einem Fall für das Bundesverfassungsgericht geworden. Die Autoren des IW Köln argumentieren, dass das Outright-Monetary-Transactions-Programm noch innerhalb der Grenzen des EZB-Mandats liegt, aber wegen seiner Nachteile nur temporär eingesetzt werden...

This paper analyzes reforms and counter-reforms in Bolivia in recent decades and their effects on the policymaking process (PMP) and productivity. Bolivia's PMP has shifted from a formal representative democracy to a "participative and direct type of democracy" where street protest and other...

As the recent crisis has forcefully suggested, understanding financial-market interconnectedness is of a paramount importance to explain systemic risk, stability and economic dynamics. In this paper, we address these issues along two related perspectives. First, we explore the statistical...

As the 'Washington Consensus' reforms are losing momentum in Latin America, the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) is calling for shifting the focus from the content of policy choices to the political process of their implementation. As this paper studies the paradigmatic case of...