Monetary policy

Post n°31

Interest rate uncertainty harms the economy

Published on 09/27/2017

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By Klodiana Istrefi and Sarah Mouabbi

Uncertainty about the future path of interest rates is harmful to the economy. A new measure of interest rate uncertainty is constructed for G7 countries, Spain and Sweden, during 1993-2015. Interest rate uncertainty, of the size observed during the recent crisis, decreases industrial production by up to 3.8% and CPI inflation by up to 1 percentage point (pp) while increasing unemployment by up to 1.2 pp.

Updated on 02/13/2020 12:07
Post n°21

Business cycles and Taylor rules in the euro area

Published on 06/13/2017

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by Benoît Nguyen

The Taylor rules provide guideline recommendations for policy interest rates based on the deviation between macroeconomic variables and their target or potential levels. They can be calculated for each of the euro area countries. Although significantly divergent at the height of the sovereign debt crisis, there has been a clear convergence since 2014, reflecting the resynchronisation of business cycles in the euro area.

Updated on 02/12/2020 12:14
Post n°20

Economic crises and the lender of last resort

Published on 05/30/2017

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By V. Bignon and C. Jobst

Economic history and wine may contribute to understanding contemporaneous economic issues. The wine crisis caused by phylloxera in the late 19th century helps identify the causal impact of refinancing operations of central banks (CBs) on firms’ defaults. The geographical distribution of the branches of the French CB meant that varying ease of access to discounting bills of exchanges varied when the crisis struck. Regions that benefitted from easier access to central bank refinancing exhibited a lower increase in default rates during the crisis.

Updated on 02/12/2020 11:42
Post n°19

Why Have Interest Rates Fallen far Below the Return on Capital

Published on 05/22/2017

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By M. Marx, B. Mojon and F. Velde

Risk-free rates have been falling since the 1980s while the return on capital has not (Figure 1). In the framework of an overlapping-generation model, Marx, Mojon, Velde (2017) show that these contrasted developments can be mainly explained by an increase in the (perceived) risk on productivity growth. This implies that real rates are likely to stay low for several years.

Updated on 02/12/2020 11:26
Post n°11

The natural rate of interest: estimates for the euro area

Published on 03/23/2017

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By Adrian Penalver

The natural rate of interest is the theoretical real rate at which inflation neither rises nor falls. Determined independently of monetary policy, it is a benchmark to assess whether policy is accommodative or restrictive. It is unobservable but estimated to be negative in the euro area over recent years. With modest inflation expectations and the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates, conventional monetary policy struggled to raise inflation, explaining the ECB’s recourse to non-conventional instruments.

Updated on 02/07/2020 16:30
Post n°7

The ECB monetary policy since 2014 and its positive impact on inflation

Published on 02/10/2017

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Magali Marx, Benoit Nguyen and Jean-Guillaume  Sahuc

Euro area inflation would have been negative in 2015 and 2016 absent the ECB action since 2014. The impact of this action on inflation, measured by the HICP (Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices), is around +0.3 percentage point (pp) as early as 2015 and +0.8 pp in 2016 according to staff’s estimates of the Eurosystem (the ECB and the 19 national central banks). The cumulated effect on 2015-18 of measures taken in 2014-16 reaches almost +1.6 pp.

Figure 1. Euro area inflation and the estimated effect of monetary policy Note: Inflation is year-on-year percentage change in HICP. The green line represents the realized annual average of inflation. The pink area represents the inflation gain brought by monetary policy.
Updated on 02/07/2020 15:35
Post n°6

US elections, interest rates and Europe’s monetary independence

Published on 02/07/2017

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by Benoit Mojon

The ECB unconventional monetary policy has largely succeeded in decoupling nominal interest rates in the euro area from those in the United States since 2014, as warranted by their respective macroeconomic conditions. This has been especially true since the rise in US interest rates after the election of Donald Trump, particularly for rates up to 5 years.

Figure 1: 5 year interest rates (Euro area AAA, US, UK and French treasuries, in %) Sources: Bloomberg and ECB
Updated on 02/07/2020 15:17

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