An impact of country-specific economic developments on ECB decisions

The discussion about country-specific influence on the interest rate decisions of the European Central Bank does not cease. To investigate the possibility of regional influence on the determination of the policy rate, we estimate Taylor-type reaction functions for the period from 1999 to 2005 and include country-specific variables of the euro zone member states. We do not find convincing evidence that country-specific economic developments influence the decisions of the ECB Governing Council. However, the maximum inflation rate and the minimum economic sentiment of the euro area seem to have an effect on the decisions. --Taylor rule,ECB,monetary policy

Market discipline and the use of government bonds as collateral in the EMU

The confidence that financial markets are able to discipline the debt behaviour of governments is not very high. Therefore, the Stability and Growth Pact has been implemented as an institutional constraint to substitute for the market mechanism. With the weakening of the Pact, market discipline could gain importance again. To strengthen market discipline, reasons for its failure in the euro area have to be analysed. One possible reason could be that the European Central Bank accepts all European government bonds without distinction in its monetary policy auctions as collateral. This could provide the financial market with a signal that these government securities are equally (non-)risky and that a differentiation with respect to risk premia is not needed. --Stability and Growth Pact,Market Discipline,Collateral,Repo

Decision-Making of the ECB: Reform and Voting Power

The ECB reform is designed to meet the challenges of an enlarged monetary union in the ECB Council. The reform is assessed by analysing alternatives for the classification of governors into groups of the rotation scheme like the synchronisation of the economic development of the member states. In a second approach, voting power indices are assigned to the governors allocated to the different groups instead of voting weights. Special attention is given to the difference between the political weight of a governor and the economic and population weight of its country of origin. --ECB,reform,rotation scheme,voting power indices

Inflation Expectations of Experts and ECB Communication

The communication policy of the European Central Bank attracts a lot of attention from financial markets. This paper analyses the informational content of the monthly introductory statements of the ECB president explaining interest rate decisions with regard to inflation expectations of financial market experts for the euro area from February 1999 to June 2007. Estimations are conducted for the influence of ECB communication on expectations formation besides other macroeconomic variables. As the results indicate, the indicator measuring the informational content of ECB rhetoric contributes to the explanation of inflation expectations formation. --inflation expectations formation,central bank communication,Carlson-Parkin method,survey expectations

A Comparison Between the Fed and the ECB: Taylor Rules

This paper analyzes whether Taylor-type policy rules can be used to describe the behavior of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank from the beginning of 1999 until mid 2002. Since there was no common monetary policy for the Euro area before 1999, we examine if the average Central Bank behavior of the countries forming the European Monetary Union can be approximated by a single reaction function. We compare the currency areas by searching for similarities and distinctions between the Taylor-type reaction functions of the two central banks. We pay particular attention to the possible influence of one central bank on the behavior of the other one. The simplest method to test this interdependence is to compare the two reaction functions and try to incorporate the decision variable of one central bank into the other central bank's reaction function. The estimations show that there are significant differences in the reaction functions of both central banks before and after 1999 and between the two central banks. The second result is that the Fed seems to influence the ECB but not vice versa. --ECB,Federal Reserve,monetary policy,Taylor rule

The Impact of EMU on Inflation Expectations

This paper analyses the impact of the monetary regime change from the Bundesbank to the ECB in 1999 on inflation expectations. In the theoretical part, the Barro-Gordon model is used to derive the potential effect of a new central bank on inflation, inflation expectations and forecast errors. The econometric investigation is based on a flexible specification of expectation formation which allows both for rational and adaptive elements. Data on inflation expectations originate from the ZEW Financial Market Survey. The results indicate that the monetary regime change did not have a strong and lasting impact on the formation of inflation expectations and that the anti-inflationary credibility of both central banks is not perceived to differ significantly. However, the analysis also reveals that the years immediately before the start of EMU were characterised by a relatively large degree of uncertainty: in this time, market participants resorted to backward-looking expectations even more than usually. This is a plausible result because of the intitial uncertainty about the new central bank?s characteristics. Once in charge of monetary policy the ECB was quickly successful to restore certainty about its true Bundesbank-like type. --inflation expectations,credibility,ZEW Financial market survey,ECB,EMU,Carlson-Parkin

Independence and Accountability of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Committees

The democratic accountability of policymaking institutions which are autonomous within delegated mandates has not received as much attention as their independence. We analyze in a theoretical model the effects of accountability in the form of possible overriding of economic policy decisions by the government under different degrees of independence of expert committees conducting monetary and fiscal policy. The equilibrium outcomes of such alternative institution-design frameworks are compared according to key macroeconomic performance criteria. Our results stress the trade-off between anchoring inflation expectations on target and output stabilization that is not solved with accountability. --Independence,accountability,monetary policy,fiscal policy,expert committees,institution design

Independence and Accountability of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Committees

The democratic accountability of policymaking institutions which are autonomous within delegated mandates has not received as much attention as their independence. We analyze in a theoretical model the effects of accountability inthe form of possible overriding of economic policy decisions by the government under different degrees of independence of expert committees conducting monetary and fiscal policy. The equilibrium outcomes of such alternative institution-design frameworks are compared according to key macroeconomic performance criteria. Our results stress the trade-off between anchoring inflation expectations on target and output stabilization that is not solved with accountability.independence, accountability, monetary policy, fiscal policy, expert committees, institution design

Does it Pay to Watch Central Bankers' Lips? The Information Content of ECB Wording

In this analysis, the informational content of central bank rhetoric is assessed based on the experience with the ECB since 1999. Among the ECB?s communication channels we focus on the monthly press conferences. Based on a counting of certain signal words we construct a wording indicator reflecting the ?hawkishness? of monetary rhetorics. For the construction, we develop an objective algorithm representing a learning process of ECB observers. We then integrate this indicator into a standard Taylor type ordered probit model for the explanation of the interest rate. We show that the wording indicator can improve the model?s fit when added to the standard explanatory variables. However, a model based solely on this indicator performs worse than the baseline. The results are confirmed by out of sample analysis where the determination of the wording indicators? weights is based on the early ECB period which, subsequently, is excluded from the tests. Our conclusion is that linguistic analysis can improve but not substitute more rigorous forecasting techniques based on hard economic data. --Taylor rule,wording,central bank communication

Market Discipline and the Use of Government Bonds as Collateral in the EMU

The confidence that financial markets are able to discipline the debt behaviour of governments is not very high. Therefore, the Stability and Growth Pact has been implemented as an institutional constraint to substitute for the market mechanism. With the weakening of the Pact, market discipline could gain importance again. To strengthen market discipline, reasons for its failure in the euro area have to be analysed. One possible reason could be that the European Central Bank accepts all European government bonds without distinction in its monetary policy auctions as collateral. This could provide the financial market with a signal that these government securities are equally (non-)risky and that a differentiation with respect to risk premia is not needed