SPEECH
26 February 2021
Unconventional fiscal and monetary policy
The secular decline in real interest rates requires us to rethink the optimal policy mix during economic downturns, says Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel. Successful macroeconomic stabilisation requires both unconventional monetary and fiscal policy.
Speech
SPEECH
25 February 2021
The compass of monetary policy
Preserving favourable financing conditions is the compass for monetary policy, says Chief Economist Philip R. Lane. Ample monetary stimulus remains essential to preserve those conditions for all sectors of the economy during the course of the pandemic.
Speech
ACCOUNT
18 February 2021
Account of January monetary policy meeting
Governing Council members agreed that monetary stimulus remained essential to preserve favourable financing conditions during the pandemic, according to the account. The ECB’s policy stance helped to counter the downward impact of the pandemic on the projected path of inflation.
Account of January meeting- 25 February 2021
- MONETARY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EURO AREAAnnexes
- 25 February 2021
- MONETARY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EURO AREA
- 23 February 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Annexes
- 23 February 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT COMMENTARY
- 19 February 2021
- OTHER GOVERNING COUNCIL DECISIONSEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +
- 19 February 2021
- EURO AREA FINANCIAL VEHICLE CORPORATION STATISTICSAnnexes
- 19 February 2021
- EURO AREA FINANCIAL VEHICLE CORPORATION STATISTICS
- 19 February 2021
- EURO AREA INVESTMENT FUNDSAnnexes
- 19 February 2021
- EURO AREA INVESTMENT FUNDS
- 26 February 2021
- Keynote speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Third Annual Conference organised by the European Fiscal Board on “High Debt, Low Rates and Tail Events: Rules-Based Fiscal Frameworks under Stress”
- 25 February 2021
- Presentation by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the IESE Business School Alumni Learning Programme Webinar “Risk, reform and recovery in the eurozone”
- 25 February 2021
- Speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários
- 22 February 2021
- Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the opening plenary session of the European Parliamentary Week 2021 in virtual format
- 18 February 2021
- Guest lecture by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- 26 February 2021
- Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Andrés Stumpf on 22 February
- 25 February 2021
- Interview with Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Ingūna Ukenābele on 22 February 2021
- 9 February 2021
- Interview with Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Tim Bartz
- 7 February 2021
- Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Marie-Pierre Gröndahl and Hervé Gattegno
- 31 January 2021
- Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Markus Zydra on 26 January and published on 1 February 2021 as a shortened version in Süddeutsche Zeitung
- 13 February 2021
- Blog post by Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- Climate change requires urgent action and we at the ECB must be committed to doing our part, says Executive Board member Frank Elderson. The EU Treaties define clear obligations and limits. They provide substantial scope for the ECB to take action on climate change.
- 2 December 2020
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (15) +Details
- Summary
- The results of the ECB’s latest study on payment behaviours suggest that no single means of payment currently available meets all consumer needs, Executive Board member Fabio Panetta writes in The ECB Blog. This underlines the importance of continuing to give people a choice on how to pay.
- 20 October 2020
- Blog post by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- High-quality data and statistics provide indispensable input for sound policy decisions, including at the ECB, writes Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel. Today’s World Statistics Day reminds us of the importance of data we can trust.
- 2 October 2020
- Blog post by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- We should be ready to issue a digital euro if and when it is necessary, writes Executive Board member Fabio Panetta. The euro is a currency that Europeans trust. We need to make sure that it is fit for the future.
- 11 September 2020
- Blog post by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECBDetails
- Summary
- Our current measures are providing crucial support to the economic recovery in the euro area, writes Chief Economist Philip R. Lane. But there is no room for complacency as inflation remains far below the aim and risks continue to be tilted to the downside.
- 26 February 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2529Details
- Abstract
- We propose a new model of trading in OTC markets. Dealers accumulate inventories by trading with end-investors and trade among each other to reduce their inventory holding costs. Core dealers use a more efficient trading technology than peripheral dealers, who are heterogeneously connected to core dealers and trade with each other bilaterally. Connectedness affects prices and allocations if and only if the peripheral dealers’ aggregate inventory position differs from zero. Price dispersion increases in the size of this position. The model generates new predictions about the effects of dealers' connectedness and dealers' aggregate inventories on prices.
- JEL Code
- G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
G12 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Asset Pricing, Trading Volume, Bond Interest Rates
G19 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Other
- 25 February 2021
- RESEARCH BULLETIN - No. 81Details
- Abstract
- Loan renegotiations are expected to surge following the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and the subsequent crisis, as more loans default during recessions. At such times, managing lending relationships effectively becomes even more important for bank governance, risk, and credit supply. My study presents evidence that continuous lending relationships between bank loan officers and corporate borrowers improve the outcomes of loan renegotiations. The analysis draws on a novel dataset on corporate loans during a bank reorganisation in Greece in the mid-2010s. This dataset allows us to empirically identify the causal effect of interrupted relationships. My main findings are that firms that experience an exogenous interruption in their loan officer relationship are faced with three consequences. First, the firms are less likely to renegotiate a loan compared to firms with continuous relationships. Second, when loans are renegotiated, firms with interrupted loan officer relationships receive tougher loan terms. Third, these firms raise more equity, reduce their overall borrowing, and partially substitute borrowing from other banks. These results point to the importance of lending relationships in mitigating the cost of distress for borrowers renegotiating loans. It therefore suggests that bank managers, supervisors, and resolution authorities need to be mindful of the potential costs of changing loan officers.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
L14 : Industrial Organization→Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance→Transactional Relationships, Contracts and Reputation, Networks
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
O16 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economic Development→Financial Markets, Saving and Capital Investment, Corporate Finance and Governance
- 22 February 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATIONS
- 22 February 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2528Details
- Abstract
- The paper provides an ex-post analysis of the determinants of within-country regional heterogeneity of the labour market impact of COVID-19. By focussing on the first wave of the pandemic in the four largest euro area economies, it finds that the propagation of the economic impact across regions cannot be explained by the spread of infections only. Instead, a region’s economic structure is a significant driver of the observed heterogeneity. Moreover, our results suggest that a region's trade relations, both within and across countries, represent a relevant indirect channel through which COVID-19 related disruptions affect regional economic activity. In this regard, the analysis depicts vulnerabilities arising from potential disruptions of the highly integrated EU supply chains.
- JEL Code
- R11 : Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics→General Regional Economics→Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
F14 : International Economics→Trade→Empirical Studies of Trade
J40 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Particular Labor Markets→General
R15 : Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics→General Regional Economics→Econometric and Input?Output Models, Other Models
- 22 February 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATIONS
- 22 February 2021
- SURVEY OF MONETARY ANALYSTS
- 19 February 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2527Details
- Abstract
- The Global Financial Crisis fostered the design and adoption of macroprudential policies throughout the world. This raises important questions for monetary policy. What, if any, is the relationship between monetary and macroprudential policies? In particular, how does the effectiveness of macroprudential policies (or lack thereof) influence the conduct of monetary policy? This discussion paper builds on the insights of recent theoretical and empirical research to address these questions.
- JEL Code
- E3 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages - Network
- Discussion papers
- 19 February 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2526Details
- Abstract
- We study the impact of the COVID-19 shock on the portfolio exposures of euro area investors. The analysis “looks-through” holdings of investment fund shares to first gauge euro area investors' full exposures to global debt securities and listed shares by sector at end-2019 and to subsequently analyse the portfolio shifts in the first and second quarters of 2020. We show important heterogeneous patterns across asset classes and sectors, but also across euro area less and more vulnerable countries. In particular, we find a broad-based rebalancing towards domestic sovereign debt at the expense of extra-euro area sovereigns, consistent with heightened home bias. These patterns were strongly driven by indirect holdings – via investment funds – especially for insurance companies and pension funds, but levelled off in the second quarter. On the contrary, for listed shares we find that euro area investors rebalanced away from domestic towards extra-euro area securities in both the first and the second quarter, which may be associated with better relative foreign stock market performance. Many of these shifts were only due to indirect holdings, corroborating the importance of investment funds in assessing investors' exposures via securities, in particular in times of large shocks. We also confirm the important intermediation role played by investment funds in an analysis focusing on the large-scale portfolio rebalancing observed between 2015 and 2017 during the ECB's Asset Purchase Programme.
- JEL Code
- F30 : International Economics→International Finance→General
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
- 18 February 2021
- ANNUAL CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET OF THE EUROSYSTEMEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +
- 18 February 2021
- ANNUAL ACCOUNTSEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Related
- 18 February 2021
- PRESS RELEASESEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +
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 | 1.2121 | |
| JPY | Japanese yen | 128.83 | |
| GBP | Pound sterling | 0.87053 | |
| CHF | Swiss franc | 1.0986 |
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
LEARN MORE
What is the European Central Bank?