European Central Bank accountability: how the monetary dialogue could be improved. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2014/04, March 2014

According to the European Union Treaties, the European Central Bank (ECB) is accountable to the European Parliament. In practice, this accountability takes mainly the form of a quarterly Monetary Dialogue between the president of the ECB and the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs committee. We assess the impact of the Monetary Dialogue. We describe the ECB’s accountability practices, compare them to those of other major central banks and provide an assessment of the dialogue in the last five years. The Monetary Dialogue could be improved and we make recommendations on this. We also consider what role the Monetary Dialogue could play in the current context of the ECB’s evolving role. We discuss in particular forward guidance and quantitative easing. We review the main features and the way in which those policies have been implemented by other central banks. We then suggest the appropriate role for the Monetary Dialogue in relation to each of those policies. We conclude with some observations on the function of the Monetary Dialogue after the establishment of a banking union in Europe.

Addressing weak inflation: The European Central Bank's shopping list. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2014/05, May 2014

There are clear benefits to price stability. High inflation can distort corporate investment decisions and the consumption behaviour of households. Changes to inflation redistribute real wealth and income between different segments of society, such as savers and borrowers, or young and old. Price stability is therefore a fundamental public good and it became a fundamental principle of European Economic and Monetary Union. But the European Treaties do not define price stability. It was left to the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) to quantify it: "Price stability is defined as a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2%"[1]. The Governing Council has also clarified that it aims to maintain inflation below, but close to, two percent over the medium term, though it has not quantified what 'closeness' means, nor has it given a precise definition of the 'medium term'[2]. The clarification has been widely interpreted to mean that the actual target of the ECB is close to, but below, two percent inflation in the medium term.

European Central Bank quantitative easing: the detailed manual. Bruegel Policy Contribution Issue 2015/02, March 2015

• The European quantitative easing programme, the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), started on 9 March 2015 and will last at least until September 2016. Purchases will be composed of sovereign bonds and securities from European institutions and national agencies. • The European Central Bank Governing Council imposed limits to ensure that the Eurosystem will not breach the prohibition on monetary financing. However, these limits will constrain the size and duration of the programme, especially if it is sustained after September 2016. The possibility for national central banks to also buy national agency securities could alleviate this, but the small number of eligible agencies could limit their role as a back-up purchase. • The Eurosystem should find other eligible agencies, especially in countries in which public debt is small, or waive the limits for countries respecting the investment grade eligibility criteria. The same issue arises with European institutions: their number and outstanding debt securities are limited. The waiver of the limits proposed for sovereigns should be applied to institutions with high ratings. • The PSPP profits that will ultimately be repatriated to national treasuries will be small. This was to be expected, given current very low yields. Profits will also come from the major increase in reserves resulting from the implementation of QE, combined with the negative deposit rates on excess reserves at the ECB.

The Monetary Policy of the European Central Bank (2002-2015). CEPS Special Report No. 109/May 2015

This paper examines the policies pursued by the European Central Bank (ECB) since the inception of the euro. The ECB was originally set up to pursue price stability, with an eye also to economic growth and financial stability as subsidiary goals, once the primary goal was secured. The application of a single monetary policy to a diverse economic area has entailed a pronounced pro-cyclicality in its real economic effects on the eurozone periphery. Later, monetary policy became the main policy instrument to tackle financial instability elicited by the failure of Lehman Brothers and the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone. In the process, the ECB emerged as the lender of last resort in the sovereign debt markets of participating countries. Persistent economic depression and deflation eventually brought the ECB into the uncharted waters of unconventional policies. That the ECB could legally perform all of these tasks bears witness to the flexibility of the TFEU and its Statute, but its tools and operating procedures were stretched to their limit. In the end, the place of the ECB amongst EU policy-making institutions has been greatly enhanced, but has entailed repeated intrusions into the broader domain of economic policies – not least because of its market intervention policies – whose consequences have yet to be ascertained.

The Monetary Policy of the European Central Bank (2002-2015). Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings (BEEP) 35/2015.

This paper examines the policies pursued by the European Central Bank (ECB) since the inception of the euro. The ECB was originally set up to pursue price stability, with an eye also to economic growth and financial stability as subsidiary goals, once the primary goal was secured. The application of a single monetary policy to a diverse economic area has entailed a pronounced pro-cyclicality in its real economic effects on the eurozone periphery. Later, monetary policy became the main policy instrument to tackle financial instability elicited by the failure of Lehman Brothers and the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone. In the process, the ECB emerged as the lender of last resort in the sovereign debt markets of participating countries. Persistent economic depression and deflation eventually brought the ECB into the uncharted waters of unconventional policies. That the ECB could legally perform all of these tasks bears witness to the flexibility of the TFEU and its Statute, but its tools and operating procedures were stretched to their limit. In the end, the place of the ECB amongst EU policy-making institutions has been greatly enhanced, but has entailed repeated intrusions into the broader domain of economic policies – not least because of its market intervention policies – whose consequences have yet to be ascertained.

Innovations of the European Central Bank in the Context of Financial and Monetary Integration: A Chinese Assessment. ZEI Discussion Paper C229, 2015

In the 15 years since the introduction of the Euro, the integration process within the European Economic and Monetary Union has seen rapid development in terms of both breadth and depth. Exclusively responsible for the monetary policy of the Eurozone, the European Central Bank has continued to adjust to meet the challenges brought about by these changes. The paper explores financial and monetary integration in the Eurozone and reviews the reasons, specific performance and impact of changes in the European Central Bank’s decision-making mechanisms. The purpose of which is to deepen and expand understanding in academic circles of the European economy and the European Economic and Monetary Union, as well as their development trends.

La Banque centrale européenne et la nouvelle gouvernance économique européenne: le défi de l’intégration différenciée = The European Central Bank and the new European economic governance: the challenge of differential integration. Research Paper in Law 01/2015

No abstract.

Information Guide: European Central Bank

A guide to information sources on the European Central Bank (ECB), with hyperlinks to further sources of information within European Sources Online and on external websites.

A central bank,

Mode of access: Internet.

Central banking legislation; a collection of central bank, monetary, and banking laws.

Includes bibliographies.

The price elasticity of the Euro to movements in foreign reserves through European Central Bank intevention

The Euro has been used as the largest weighting element in a basket of currencies for forex arrangements adopted by several Central European countries outside the European Union (EU). The paper uses a new time-series approach to examine the relationship between the Euro exchange rate and the level of foreign reserves. It employs Zero-no-zero (ZNZ) patterned vector error-correction (VECM) modelling to investigate Granger causal relations among foreign reserves, the European Monetary Union money supply and the Euro exchange rate. The findings confirm that foreign reserves may influence movements in the Euro's exchange rate. Further, ZNZ patterned VECM modelling with exogenous variables is used to estimate the amount of foreign reserves currently required in order to again achieve a targetted Euro exchange rate

Translation practices at the European Central Bank with reference to metaphors

The European Union institutions represent a complex setting and a specific case of institutional translation. The European Central Bank (ECB) is a particular context as the documents translated belong to the field of economics and, thus, contain many specialised terms and neologisms that pose challenges to translators. This study aims to investigate the translation practices at the ECB, and to analyse their effects on the translated texts. In order to illustrate the way texts are translated at the ECB, the thesis will focus on metaphorical expressions and the conceptual metaphors by which they are sanctioned. Metaphor is often associated with literature and less with specialised texts. However, according to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory, our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature and metaphors are pervasive elements of thought and speech. The corpus compiled comprises economic documents translated at the ECB, mainly from English into Romanian. Using corpus analysis, the most salient metaphorical expressions were identified in the source and target texts and explained with reference to the main conceptual metaphors. Translation strategies are discussed on the basis of a comparison of the source and target texts. The text-based analysis is complemented by questionnaires distributed to translators, which give insights into the institution’s translation practices. As translation is an institutional process, translators have to follow certain guidelines and practices; these are discussed with reference to translators’ agency. A gap was identified in the field of institutional translation. The translation process in the EU institutions has been insufficiently explored, especially regarding the new languages of the European Union. By combining the analysis of the institutional practices, the texts produced in the institution and the translators’ work (by the questionnaires distributed to translators), this thesis intends to bring a contribution to institutional translation and metaphor translation, particularly regarding a new EU language, Romanian.

Exchange rate dynamics, structural breaks, and central bank interventions in Colombia

We evaluate the effectiveness of the Colombian Central Bank´s interventions in the foreign exchange market during the period 2000 to 2014 -- We examine the stochastic process that describes the exchange rate, with a focus on the detection of structural breaks or unit roots in the data to determine whether the Central Bank´s interventions were effective -- We find that the exchange rate can be described either by a random walk or by a trend-stationary model with multiple breaks -- In neither cases do we find any evidence that the exchange rate was affected by the Central Bank interventions

The Power of words: Central bank communication and currency markets.

This thesis investigates the effect of central banks communication on exchange rates. It is found that Bank of Canada speeches had a dampening effect on the Canadian dollar exchange rate while Reserve Bank of Australia speeches did not have an impact on the Australian dollar exchange rate.

Electoral opportunism and fiscal policy before and after the EMU

A Masters Thesis, presented as part of the requirements for the award of a Research Masters Degree in Economics from NOVA – School of Business and Economics