MONETARY POLICY
Press conference on Thursday, 22 April 2021
President Christine Lagarde and Vice-President Luis de Guindos explain the Governing Council’s monetary policy decisions and answer questions from journalists.
The press conference starts at 14:30 CET.
Low latency audio stream
PUBLICATION
20 April 2021
Results of April 2021 bank lending survey
Credit standards for loans to firms tightened moderately in Q1, mainly due to credit risk concerns related to the pandemic. Loan demand from firms and households declined, reflecting firms’ liquidity buffers and lower consumer confidence. The ECB’s measures continue to support lending.
Euro area bank lending survey
EXPLAINERS
30 March 2021
What are TLTROs?
Targeted longer-term refinancing operations encourage banks to keep affordable credit flowing to people and businesses. This, in turn, supports spending and investment in the economy. But how do they work exactly?
Explainer- 20 April 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Annexes
- 20 April 2021
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT - COMMENTARY
- 20 April 2021
- PRESS RELEASERelated
- 20 April 2021
- THE EURO AREA BANK LENDING SURVEY
- 19 April 2021
- BALANCE OF PAYMENTS (MONTHLY)
- 14 April 2021
- PRESS RELEASERelated
- 14 April 2021
- EURO AREA SECURITIES ISSUES STATISTICSAnnexes
- 14 April 2021
- EURO AREA SECURITIES ISSUES STATISTICS
- 14 April 2021
- EURO AREA SECURITIES ISSUES STATISTICS
- 14 April 2021
- Vortrag von Isabel Schnabel, Mitglied des Direktoriums der EZB, bei einem Webinar von Sven Giegold (MdEP) mit der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
- 14 April 2021
- Introductory remarks by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the ECON Committee of the European Parliament
- 14 April 2021
- Introductory remarks by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the ECON Committee of the European Parliament (by videoconference)Related
- 8 April 2021
- Statement by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the forty-third meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee
- 27 March 2021
- Remarks by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at “The Outlook for the Economy and Finance” workshop (fully digital) organised by The European House − Ambrosetti
- 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
- 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
- 23 March 2021
- Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Annette Weisbach on 22 March 2021
- 17 March 2021
- Interview on Twitter with Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted and published on 16 March 2021
- 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.
- 22 March 2021
- Blog post by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECBDetails
- 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 ECBDetails
- 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 ECBEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (15) +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.
- 20 April 2021
- THE EURO AREA BANK LENDING SURVEYAnnexes
- 20 April 2021
- BANK LENDING SURVEY - ANNEX
Related- 20 April 2021
- PRESS RELEASE
- 15 April 2021
- RESEARCH BULLETIN - No. 83Details
- Abstract
- ECB and Federal Reserve monetary policy both spill over to other countries. But these spillovers are asymmetric. Federal Reserve monetary policy shocks have a significant impact on economic activity in the euro area and the rest of the world, mainly by affecting financial conditions globally. Conversely, ECB monetary policy shocks have little impact on the US economy and on global financial conditions, but still significantly affect global trade and economic activity, especially in emerging markets.
- JEL Code
- E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
F3 : International Economics→International Finance
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
F42 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→International Policy Coordination and Transmission
- 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATIONAnnexes
- 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATION
- 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATION
Related - 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATIONRelated
- 14 April 2021
- ANNUAL REPORTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (21) +
- 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATIONEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (21) +Related
- 14 April 2021
- ANNUAL REPORTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (21) +
- 14 April 2021
- SPEECH
- 14 April 2021
- ANNUAL REPORTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (21) +Related
- 14 April 2021
- OTHER PUBLICATION
- 13 April 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2537Details
- Abstract
- Increased investment in clean electricity generation or the introduction of a carbon tax will most likely lead to higher electricity prices. We examine the effect from changing electricity prices on manufacturing employment. Analyzing firm-level data, we find that rising electricity prices lead to a negative impact on labor demand and investment in sectors most reliant on electricity as an input factor. Since these sectors are unevenly spread across countries and regions, the labor impact will also be unevenly spread with the highest impact in Southern Germany and Northern Italy. We also identify an additional channel that leads to heterogeneous responses. When electricity prices rise, financially constrained firms reduce employment more than less constrained firms. This implies a potentially mitigating role for monetary policy.
- JEL Code
- E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
H23 : Public Economics→Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue→Externalities, Redistributive Effects, Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
J23 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Labor Demand
Q48 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→Government Policy
- 12 April 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2536Details
- Abstract
- Foreign driven medium-term oscillations that originate from fluctuations in technological frontier countries gained widespread attention among policymakers. To study this phenomenon in the context of domestic and other foreign drivers of the euro area business cycle, we develop a medium-scale, two-economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with endogenous growth and estimate it with Bayesian methods for the United States and the euro area for the period from 1984:Q1 to 2017:Q4. The framework suggests that foreign shocks can be a substantial source of medium-term oscillations that contribute to pro-cyclicality of real GDP across countries. Notably, US shocks to liquidity preference and trade demand explain more than a third of the euro area downturn during the Great Recession.
- JEL Code
- E2 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
F1 : International Economics→Trade
F4 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
O4 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
- 12 April 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2535Details
- Abstract
- This study analyses the effects of euro area monetary policy on equity risk premia (ERP). We find that changes in equity prices during periods of accommodative monetary policy mainly reflected adjustments in the discount factor and economic activity – rather than fluctuations in investors’ required risk compensation. Furthermore, the ERP appears to not have declined much since the introduction of unconventional monetary policy and stands higher than prior to the GFC. Use of identified monetary policy shocks points to insignificant effects of monetary policy on the ERP. Further breakdown of these shocks reveals that monetary policy has a significant upwards impact on the ERP if it is perceived as a negative information surprise, while the opposite prevails in the case of a genuine accommodative monetary policy surprise. Accumulating these effects over time suggests that the two might have largely offset each other since the introduction of unconventional monetary policy.
- JEL Code
- E22 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Capital, Investment, Capacity
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
G12 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Asset Pricing, Trading Volume, Bond Interest Rates
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 | 1.2051 | |
| JPY | Japanese yen | 130.64 | |
| GBP | Pound sterling | 0.86295 | |
| CHF | Swiss franc | 1.1029 |
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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