Policymakers around the world call for more competition in the banking sector. One barrier to achieving this goal is consumer inertia. Despite its policy relevance, there is surprisingly little known about consumers' bank switching behaviour. By applying the switching costs typology developed by...

Based on annual household surveys between 2003 and 2012, we show that owners have a rosy picture of their current house value and hold optimistic views on the historical and expected change in house value compared to general price trends. Optimism is both driven by loss aversion and an endowment...

We empirically investigate how well different learning rules manage to explain the formation of household inflation expectations in six key member countries of the euro area. Our findings reveal a pronounced heterogeneity in the learning rules employed on the country level. While the expectation...

Based on household surveys from 2004 and 2014 we show how payment patterns in the Netherlands have changed. This data is unique because it covers a long time span and includes detailed information on payment behaviour per point-of-sale (POS). In this period the usage of the debit card has...

Using shopping diary survey data we show that changing payment patterns is a challenging task; even when consumers have fallen in love with the debit card, they find it hard to divorce from cash. While seven out of ten Dutch consumers report to prefer using the debit card, only seven out of...

Should central banks increase their degree of transparency any further? We show that there is likely to be an optimal intermediate degree of central bank transparency. Up to this optimum more transparency is desirable: it improves the quality of private sector inflation forecasts. But beyond the...

Trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) is vital. Although it is important to study its level, drivers and effects especially in turbulent times, little is known about trust in the ECB during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the pilot data from the ECB Consumer Expectations Survey during 2020-2021...

Using two large-scale surveys among households, we examine the drivers of trust in banks, insurance companies, BigTechs, and other people in the United States and the Netherlands, and analyse whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected public trust. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic...

In contrast to previous empirical attempts to examine the effect of increasing central bank transparency on macroeconomic magnitudes, we investigate how the link between inflation and inflation expectations alters with increasing transparency. Our motivation stems from the belief that changes in...

Using eight annual surveys from the Netherlands between 2006 and 2013, we examine whether financial crisis experiences affect trust in banks, trust in the banking supervisor, and generalized trust. Adverse experiences during the financial crisis do not only directly lower trust in banks, but...