Research at the Bundesbank aims to develop and consolidate academic expertise to support decision making and implementation of policies in its core business areas, primarily the Eurosystem’s monetary policy, financial stability, and banking supervision. At the current juncture the Bundesbank, like other central banks, faces important challenges in these areas. These challenges inspire and shape the Bundesbank’s research programme for the next several years, as laid out in the remainder of this document.

Despite an unprecedented degree of monetary accommodation and a pick-up in economic growth, inflation in the euro area has remained relatively low in recent years. Real interest rates have seen a long-lasting decline in developed economies, possibly reflecting risk aversion, low growth prospects, changes in preferences for savings and investment, demographic change and other trends. While world trade and economic integration through global value chains has been on the rise, the risk of international disintegration through new barriers to trade now appears to be increasing. Persistent differences in national competitiveness, but also gaps in the institutional framework present a continuing challenge for the euro area economy.

After the financial crisis of 2007-2008, extraordinary reform efforts have been made to stabilise the global financial system. Yet, potential vulnerabilities in financial markets remain, and rapid cross-border capital flows may amplify economic shocks. A range of new regulatory policies and instruments have been introduced, and their effectiveness as well as potential unintended consequences need to be assessed. Banking supervision and financial stability policies are challenged by rapid structural change in the banking sector accompanied by the emergence of new business models and technologies. The newly introduced monetary and financial stability but also fiscal policies likely interact in many ways, potentially generating tradeoffs which need to be understood.

This Research Programme gives you an overview of recently published, ongoing and planned research activities at the Bundesbank, organised around three research areas each containing three clusters of research projects (see figure). This website allows you to zoom in to the individual research projects that constitute these research areas and clusters.

Readers are most welcome to get in touch. Either with individual researchers whose projects you find interesting, via one of the many seminars, webinars, workshops and conferences that we organise throughout the year, or by visiting the Research Centre’s website for information about the various possibilities for cooperation and interaction.