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Interview

An inflection point in the economy

We are at an inflection point, says Chief Economist Philip R. Lane. The initial weeks of 2021 have been very tough for many firms but, as vaccination programmes are rolled out and the service sector reopens, a rebound from the worst shock of the pandemic will start.

Interview
#ASKECB 28 April 2021

Live Twitter Q&A with Isabel Schnabel

Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel answered questions on Twitter on monetary policy, inflation developments and climate change. She also discussed our measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Full Q&A
PRESS RELEASE 30 April 2021

Irene Heemskerk to head climate change centre

We welcome Irene Heemskerk as head of the new ECB climate change centre. She will take up her position as of 15 June 2021. The climate change centre brings together our work on climate change and sustainable finance. It will further shape and steer our climate agenda.

Press release
EDUCATION 30 April 2021

Our Visitor Centre is going virtual!

The Visitor Centre is open for virtual visits. Join us for an interactive presentation and learn more about our role and responsibilities.

Virtual visits
30 April 2021
PRESS RELEASE
29 April 2021
EURO AREA ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS BY INSTITUTIONAL SECTOR (FULL)
Annexes
29 April 2021
EURO AREA ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS BY INSTITUTIONAL SECTOR (FULL)
29 April 2021
EURO AREA ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS BY INSTITUTIONAL SECTOR (FULL)
29 April 2021
PRESS RELEASE
Related
29 April 2021
EURO MONEY MARKET
29 April 2021
MONETARY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EURO AREA
Annexes
27 April 2021
WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Annexes
27 April 2021
WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT - COMMENTARY
29 April 2021
Keynote speech by Frank Elderson, Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board and Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the conference on “The Role of Banks in Greening Our Economies” organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Hrvatska narodna banka
26 April 2021
Speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the European Statistical Forum (virtual)
26 April 2021
Welcome address by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the joint BIS, BoE, ECB and IMF conference on “Spillovers in a “post-pandemic, low-for-long” world”
22 April 2021
Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, Frankfurt am Main, 22 April 2021
14 April 2021
Vortrag von Isabel Schnabel, Mitglied des Direktoriums der EZB, bei einem Webinar von Sven Giegold (MdEP) mit der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
29 April 2021
Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Gabriel Mellqvist on 29 April 2021
28 April 2021
Interview on Twitter with Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted and published on 28 April 2021
12 April 2021
Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Sara Eisen on 9 April 2021 and broadcast on the same day
11 April 2021
Interview with Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Luis Doncel and published on 11 April 2021
English
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9 April 2021
Interview with Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Tim Bartz and Stefan Kaiser on 1 April and published on 9 April 2021, in print on 10 April 2021
English
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1 April 2021
Blog post by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB
Details
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 Payments
English
OTHER LANGUAGES (3) +
Details
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.
22 March 2021
Blog post by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB
Details
Summary
Our pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) has provided crucial support to euro area citizens since its launch a year ago, writes President Christine Lagarde in The ECB Blog. The PEPP has been, and remains, at the core of our pandemic policy response.
18 March 2021
Blog post by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB
Details
Summary
The damage caused by more frequent and severe natural disasters far exceeds the costs of transitioning to a greener economy, writes Vice-President Luis de Guindos in his ECB Blog post on our first climate stress test for banks and companies.
8 March 2021
Blog post by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB
Details
Summary
One year into the pandemic, we can clearly see that the social and economic impact of the virus is particularly hard for women, writes President Christine Lagarde. In response we must choose to challenge women’s roles at home, at work and in our society.
29 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION
29 April 2021
EURO MONEY MARKET
27 April 2021
WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2542
Details
Abstract
We compare sparse and dense representations of predictive models in macroeconomics, microeconomics and finance. To deal with a large number of possible predictors, we specify a prior that allows for both variable selection and shrinkage. The posterior distribution does not typically concentrate on a single sparse model, but on a wide set of models that often include many predictors.
JEL Code
C11 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Bayesian Analysis: General
C52 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
C53 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Forecasting and Prediction Methods, Simulation Methods
C55 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Modeling with Large Data Sets?
26 April 2021
WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2541
Details
Abstract
This paper sheds light on the impact of global macroeconomic uncertainty on the euro area economy. We build on the methodology proposed by Jurado et al. (2015) and estimate global as well as country-specific measures of economic uncertainty for fifteen key euro area trade partners and the euro area. Our measures display a clear counter-cyclical pattern and line up well to a wide range of historical events generally associated with heightened uncertainty. In addition, following Pier and Podstawski (2018), we estimate a Proxy SVAR where we instrument uncertainty shocks with changes in the price of gold around specific past events. We find that, historically, global uncertainty shocks have been important drivers of fluctuations in euro area economic activity, with one standard deviation increase in the identified uncertainty shock subtracting around 0.15 percentage points from euro area industrial produc-tion on impact.
JEL Code
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
C11 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Bayesian Analysis: General
C55 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Modeling with Large Data Sets?
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
F62 : International Economics→Economic Impacts of Globalization→Macroeconomic Impacts
26 April 2021
WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2540
Details
Abstract
This paper explores whether foreign intermediaries stabilise or destabilise lending to the real economy in the presence of sovereign stress in the domestic economy and abroad. Tensions in the government debt market may lead to serious disruptions in the provision of lending (i.e., the so-called “doom loop”). In this context, the presence of foreign banks poses a fundamental, yet unexplored, trade-off. On the one hand, domestic sovereign shocks are broadly inconsequential for the lending capacity of foreign banks, given that their funding conditions are not hampered by such shocks. On the other, these intermediaries may react more harshly than domestic banks to a deterioration in local loan risk and demand conditions. We exploit granular and confidential data on euro area banks operating in different countries to assess this trade-off. Overall, the presence of foreign lenders is found to stabilise lending, thus mitigating the doom loop.
JEL Code
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
23 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION
23 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION
23 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION
23 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION
23 April 2021
OTHER PUBLICATION

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