Recently, many central banks have begun communicating not just their current monetary policy, but also its probable predicted future path. However, the effectiveness of this communication hinges on how strongly it is able to influence the inflation expectations of households and firms. A standard property of macroeconomic models is that expectations respond very strongly to such announcements. A new theoretical study shows that the effects are much smaller in a model capable of matching survey evidence on expectations formation.

Germany has the second lowest share of homeowners of all OECD countries. This is driven by housing policies that produce incentives to rent. New studies show that alternative policies could increase the homeownership rate and reduce wealth inequality.

Consumer goods prices systematically depend on product age. A new study analyses this dependence and shows that it plays an important role in aggregate inflation and the optimal inflation rate.

Are the exchange rates between certain currencies more closely connected than those of other currencies? Answers to this question can be provided by econometric methods. A new study shows how machine learning can deliver useful insights into this issue.

The global financial crisis was a lesson that it is not enough to merely monitor the stability of individual banks – the stability of the banking sector as a whole is also a crucial factor, which is precisely what the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB), a key instrument under the Basel III regime, is there to help safeguard. However, recent research indicates that adhering too strictly to the reference indicator envisaged under the Basel III framework might lead to a situation in which supervisors activate the CCyB either too late or not at all ahead of a future financial crisis.