ECONOMIC BULLETIN
2 August 2021
How excess savings can shape the recovery
The pandemic has led to unprecedented levels of households’ savings across advanced economies, shows the Economic Bulletin. The large stock of savings accumulated since early 2020 could significantly influence the post-pandemic recovery path.
Economic Bulletin Box
INTERVIEW
29 July 2021
A clear and credible inflation target
We want inflation at 2% over the medium term, not below, Executive Board member Fabio Panetta tells Corriere della Sera. We will respond forcefully to shocks pushing inflation below our target and only raise rates once we are convinced inflation can be firmly anchored at 2%.
Interview
EXPLAINERS
28 July 2021
What is the PEPP?
The pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) was introduced in March 2020 to counter the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. It lowers borrowing costs and increases bank lending in the euro area to help people and businesses to weather the crisis. But how does it work?
Explainer- 2 August 2021
- MFI INTEREST RATE STATISTICS
- 29 July 2021
- MONETARY POLICY ACCOUNT
- 28 July 2021
- PRESS RELEASE
- 28 July 2021
- EURO AREA ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS BY INSTITUTIONAL SECTOR (FULL)
- 27 July 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Annexes
- 27 July 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT - COMMENTARY
- 22 July 2021
- Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, Frankfurt am Main, 22 July 2021EnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +
- 14 July 2021
- Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the virtual Financial Statements series hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics
- 11 July 2021
- Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the International Climate Change Conference in Venice
- 8 July 2021
- Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, Frankfurt am Main, 8 July 2021
- 3 July 2021
- Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Petersberger Sommerdialog
- 29 July 2021
- Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Frank Wiebe and Jan Mallien
- 29 July 2021
- Interview with Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Federico Fubini
- 13 July 2021
- Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Martin Arnold on 11 July 2021
- 10 July 2021
- Interview with Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Patrick Bernau and Dennis Kremer on 8 July and published on 10 July 2021
- 2 July 2021
- Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Marie Cécile Berenger
- 27 July 2021
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- If we make the recovery fund work and if we embed the lessons from the pandemic in the EMU governance framework, we can emerge from the crisis with a stronger economy and greater social and political cohesion, says Executive Board member Fabio Panetta in The ECB Blog.
- 14 July 2021
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- We have decided to launch a project to prepare for possibly issuing a digital euro. A digital euro will be successful if it adds value for people, merchants and financial intermediaries in the euro area, explains Executive Board member Fabio Panetta in The ECB Blog.
- 11 May 2021
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- Climate change and sustainability are global challenges that require global solutions, especially in the financial sector, writes Executive Board member Fabio Panetta. We need international disclosure standards and principles to categorise sustainable activities.
- 1 April 2021
- Blog post by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- The recent volatility of inflation can largely be attributed to the nature of the pandemic shock, writes Chief Economist Philip R. Lane. The increase in inflation during early 2021 does not constitute the basis for a sustained shift in inflation dynamics.
- 25 March 2021
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, and Ulrich Bindseil, ECB Director General Market Infrastructure and PaymentsDetails
- Summary
- At the ECB we are committed to understanding people’s needs and ensuring the digital euro would be widely accepted, writes Executive Board member Fabio Panetta with Ulrich Bindseil in The ECB Blog.
- 2 August 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2580Details
- Abstract
- Dominant currency pricing (DCP) weakens the demand-side effects of exchange rate changes on exports (Gopinath et al., 2020). However, adjustment in the export sector can still occur through other supply-side channels. With bilateral trade data at the HS2-product level, panel fixed-effects regressions and an instrumental variables (IV) approach, this paper presents several novel findings: (1), a depreciation of an exporter’s currency against the US-dollar increases total export volumes between non-US countries, whereas bilateral exchange rates matter very little. (2), there is no statistically significant increase in average exports per firm (the intensive margin), while the aggregate export response is mainly driven by an increase in the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin). (3), there is substantial heterogeneity in the export response to exchange rates against dominant currencies. Market concentration, approximated by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), reduces the response of both the extensive and intensive margins to the US-dollar exchange rate. These results highlight an “export supply channel” of exchange rates in a world with dominant currencies, deepen our understanding of aggregate export adjustment and further underline the heterogeneous export response in different sectors to exchange rate changes.
- JEL Code
- F14 : International Economics→Trade→Empirical Studies of Trade
F31 : International Economics→International Finance→Foreign Exchange
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
- 2 August 2021
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 5, 2021Details
- Abstract
- The propensity of households to save has reached extraordinary levels since early 2020. This box analyses the drivers of this surge and tries to infer what they imply for private consumption as the pandemic is brought under control. On the one hand, the spike in household savings mostly comprises involuntary savings held to a large extent in the form of liquid assets, while the effects of the pandemic on household income have been limited. On the other hand, the additional savings are concentrated among older and higher-income households which, together with the services-led nature of the slump in consumption, suggests that these savings have only a limited potential to boost private consumption. Overall, the underlying drivers of the recent surge in household savings do not suggest much of an additional boost to the expected rebound in private consumption in the coming year.
- JEL Code
- E21 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Consumption, Saving, Wealth
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
- 2 August 2021
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 5, 2021Details
- Abstract
- The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the accumulation of a large stock of household savings across advanced economies. Owing to their large size, the savings accumulated since early 2020 could significantly influence the post-pandemic recovery path. The central question is whether households will spend heavily once pandemic-related restrictions are lifted and consumer confidence returns, or whether other motives (e.g. precautionary, deleveraging) will keep households from spending their accumulated excess savings. This box reviews the main economic arguments supporting the hypothesis that any reduction in the accumulated stock of savings is likely to be limited in the medium term. However, given the considerable uncertainty surrounding these arguments, it also illustrates two alternative scenarios for the stock of the accumulated savings (a “cut-back” scenario and a “build-up” scenario) and assesses their possible implications for the global economic outlook.
- JEL Code
- F32 : International Economics→International Finance→Current Account Adjustment, Short-Term Capital Movements
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
- 30 July 2021
- SURVEY OF MONETARY ANALYSTS AGGREGATE RESULTS
- 30 July 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2579Details
- Abstract
- We use a unique dataset of ratings for euro area corporate loans from commercial banks’ internal rating-based (IRBs) systems and central banks’ in-house credit assessment systems (ICASs) to investigate whether banks’ IRB ratings underestimate the credit risk of their corporate loan portfolios when the latter are used as collateral in the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations. We are able to identify systematic risk underestimation by comparing the IRB ratings with those produced for the same borrowers by the ICASs. Our results show that while they are on average more conservative than ICASs for the entire population of rated corporate loans, IRBs are significantly less conservative than ICASs for those loans that are actually used as Eurosystem collateral, particularly for large loans. The less conservative estimates of risk by IRBs relative to ICASs can be partly explained by banks’ liquidity constraints, but not by their degree of capitalisation. Overall, our findings suggest the existence of a collateral-related channel through which the use of IRB ratings may influence the internal estimation of risk by banks.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G28 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Government Policy and Regulation
- 30 July 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2578Details
- Abstract
- We study the macroeconomic effects of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in a dynamic general equilibrium model. Timing and information frictions create a need for inside (bank deposits) and outside money (CBDC) to finance production. To steer the quantity of CBDC, the central bank can set the lending and deposit rates for CBDC as well as collateral and quantity requirements. Less restrictive provision of CBDC reduces bank deposits. A positive interest spread on CBDC or stricter collateral or quantity constraints reduce welfare but can contain bank disintermediation, especially if the elasticity of substitution between bank deposits and CBDC is small.
- JEL Code
- E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
E41 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Demand for Money
E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
- 29 July 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2577Details
- Abstract
- We propose a dynamic clustering model for uncovering latent time-varying group structures in multivariate panel data. The model is dynamic in three ways. First, the cluster location and scale matrices are time-varying to track gradual changes in cluster characteristics over time. Second, all units can transition between clusters based on a Hidden Markov model (HMM). Finally, the HMM’s transition matrix can depend on lagged time-varying cluster distances as well as economic covariates. Monte Carlo experiments suggest that the units can be classified reliably in a variety of challenging settings. Incorporating dynamics in the cluster composition proves empirically important in an a study of 299 European banks between 2008Q1 and 2018Q2. We find that approximately 3% of banks transition per quarter on average. Transition probabilities are in part explained by differences in bank profitability, suggesting that low interest rates can lead to long-lasting changes in financial industry structure.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
C33 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
- 29 July 2021
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 259Details
- Abstract
- In the light of fears that the SARS-CoV-2 virus might be transmitted via cash – fears that were stoked by statements in the media and from public authorities – this paper aims to address the following issues: (1) to provide a descriptive account of the change in the circulation of euro banknotes and the use of cash in transactions during the pandemic; and (2) to assess the survivability of the virus on cash and the potential transmission risks. The pandemic has caused a significant increase in demand for cash as a store of value but a decrease in the use of cash in transactions. Although citizens reported using cash less in transactions partly out of fear of infection, research confirms that the risk of the virus being transmitted by banknotes and coins is very low. This supports the findings from the scientific community concluding that SARS-CoV-2 mainly spreads via respiratory fluids and airborne transmission, and that surfaces play a very minor role.
- JEL Code
- I10 : Health, Education, and Welfare→Health→General
I12 : Health, Education, and Welfare→Health→Health Production
E41 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Demand for Money
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
- 28 July 2021
- MEP LETTER
- 28 July 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATION
Interest rates
| Marginal lending facility | 0.25 % |
| Main refinancing operations (fixed rate) | 0.00 % |
| Deposit facility | − 0.50 % |
Inflation rate
Inflation dashboardReference rates
| USD | US dollar | 1.1886 | |
| JPY | Japanese yen | 130.17 | |
| GBP | Pound sterling | 0.85568 | |
| CHF | Swiss franc | 1.0761 |
Financial stability
Our tasks Institutional framework Financial Stability Review Macroprudential policy measuresMarket operations
Open market operations Asset purchase programmes Lendings of holdings under PSPPNOT AN EXPERT? CHECK EXPLAINER
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