The objectives and tasks of the European Central Bank (ECB) are defined in Articles 2 and 3 of Protocol (No 4) on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the European Central Bank (ECB). While in Article 3,1° of this Protocol other tasks are mentioned, the prime objective of the ESCB and therefore of the ECB, is price stability. This concept was originally specified by the Executive Board of the ECB as an annual increase of less than 2% in the inflation rate over the medium term, measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area. This paper examines to what extent the ECB has been effective in realizing price stability over the period from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2022. Price stability is important for economic agents. It allows them to plan their savings, spending and investment eventually resulting in sustained economic growth.   Notwithstanding the commitment of large human and other resources and the use of unconventional monetary policies, the ECB did not realize its prime objective during a large part of this period. We conclude that putting too much confidence in DSGE-modeling as one of the methodologies to determine monetary policy, may have played an important role in the ECB not achieving its main statutory objective.

In an effort to provide policy recommendations for Nigeria's transition to full-fledged inflation targeting, this study examines Ghana's monetary policy frameworks (monetary aggregates targeting and inflation targeting) using ARDL bounds test for cointegration and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) on annual time series data spanning 1965 to 2022 obtained from the Bank of Ghana database and the World Bank database on World Development Indicators. The results demonstrate that monetary aggregates targeting has not been successful in both the short-run and long-run periods in moderating and stabilizing inflation; however, inflation moderated under inflation targeting in both the short run and the long term. This indicates that inflation targeting proves to be a superior monetary policy framework for inflation control.

Major economic and financial contractions usually go hand-in-hand with muted inflation. This has been true for the Great Depression, the Global Financial Crisis, as well as the Covid-19 crisis. In this paper, we theoretically highlight and discuss the evolution of instruments and approaches monetary-policy decision makers at the Federal Reserve have in lifting inflation to desired levels in times of the zero-lower bound, paying particular focus on more rigorous developments like asymmetric average inflation and temporary price-level targeting.

This paper investigates the impact of monetary policy on the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria, using monthly data series spanning the period 2008 to 2023. Total private sector credit of deposit money banks was used to proxy the performance of deposit money banks while money supply, monetary policy rate, cash reserve ratio, and maximum interest rate were used as proxies for monetary policy. The Ex-post Facto research design was adopted in this study. Data on total private sector credit of deposit money banks, money supply, monetary policy rate, cash reserve ratio, and maximum interest rate were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical bulletin. The hypotheses of this paper were tested using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag statistics. The findings disclosed that total private sector credit of deposit money banks has a significant relationship with money supply and maximum interest rate while cash reserve ratio and monetary policy rate has an insignificant relationship with total private sector credit of deposit money banks. The researchers recommended among other things that the monetary authorities should consider policies that enhance liquidity within the banking system. This can be achieved through open market operations, reducing the reserve requirements, or other mechanisms that increase the availability of funds in the economy as the money supply was found to be statistically significant. Also, it is crucial for monetary authorities to monitor and adjust the maximum interest rates to ensure they remain conducive to deposit growth. High lending rates may discourage borrowing and subsequently reduce deposits, while more favorable rates could encourage economic activity and deposit inflows.

We empirically address the effects of monetary policy on the housing market in China using a novel Time-Varying Parameter VARX model. We show that an expansionary monetary has positive effects on the housing market, while during COVID-19, the effects are approaching to zero or even negative. In addition, the effects of the LPR policy are strong and even larger than that of COVID-19. Relative impulse response functions in the shorter and longer time horizons are dynamic and especially during COVID. This paper also contributes to the housing literature to show that COVID-19 can block the transmission of monetary policy.

This study examines the factors influencing inflation stability in Nigeria from 2011Q1 to 2023Q1. We employ an ARDL model to assess the impact of monetary policy rate, money supply, crude oil price, GDP growth, and government budget deficit on inflation. Our findings reveal that broad money and fiscal deficit exert a positive and statistically significant influence on inflation in both the short and long run. Interestingly, monetary policy rate only affects inflation in the short term. These results suggest that Nigerian policymakers should prioritize managing broad money and fiscal deficits to achieve long-term inflation stability.

Overall development of a country largely depends on the economic policy instruments particularly fiscal and monetary policy to streamline the development and continue the developmental progress. These two policies have significant effects on long-term growth. It is noticed that policy adoption and reforms in both fiscal and monetary policies undertaken by Southeast Asian nations during the 1960s through 1990s have contributed to their advancement. This paper discusses the strategies for flourishing as emerging economies. Examples from Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are highlighted in this study. It is found that prudent fiscal and monetary policy, effective discounting and interest rate; modernized tax system and most importantly policy regime are the contributing factors of these emerging economies. However, in spite of high-income growth and development because of supportive these policy initiatives, administrative and politico-economic constraints challenged the path of economies. Long-term development strategies are suggested to sustain the growth and continue the development pace.

This paper evaluates the fit-for-purpose of the monetary policy measures implemented by the Bank of Ghana in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the effectiveness of the BoG’s policy interventions in the context of vector autoregressions augmented with macroeconomic and financial indicators. We demonstrate that the BoG’s monetary policy measures have had nominal, real, and financial effects. The monetary interventions have been successful, as evidenced by the gradual reduction in the sovereign spread, improved financial stability, and increased real economic activity. Our findings suggest that balance sheet actions are less effective and should be moderated in the conduct of monetary policy in jurisdictions without zero lower bound constraints. However, the analysis indicates that in times of crisis, central banks should deploy both standard and non-standard tools to stabilize dysfunctional financial markets and avoid a deflationary spiral. The historical and variance decomposition of the data reveal that monetary policy shocks have historically made the largest contributions to the targeted macro-financial aggregates during the pandemic episodes.

As prices have grown at their fastest pace in recent times, inflation has become a key concern for the macro-policy environment. In many jurisdictions, consumer prices have typically formed the basis for price stability policies. Notwithstanding, producer prices remain an important channel and must be closely watched. We utilise data on Ghana and investigate the causal links between consumer and producer inflation and assess the necessity to include producer inflation target in the monetary policy rule. Our VECM and Granger causality analyses show that consumer and producer prices exhibit very stable long-term relationship and short-term gaps between the two tend to normalise over time. The relationship between consumer and producer prices has not been a one-sided lag structure, even though producer prices lead more than lag consumer prices. We conclude that Bank of Ghana’s monetary policy design that does not distinguish between consumer and producer inflation is less problematic at the moment.

Part of the present inflation is caused by the breakdown of globalization, in particular supply chains, part is caused by the Corona Pandemic, in particular lockdowns, part is caused by the Ukrainian War, part is caused by European sanctions, and part – and not the smallest one – is caused by the European Central Bank’s printing money by hook or by crook in the past and in the presence. This paper attributes inflation decisively to the overwhelming money creation by the European Central Bank.

Recently, some authors have found derivations and applications of the golden ratio in economics science. Based on previous models of Financial Gravity (FG) and generalizing them, this paper proposes the maximization of pure flows after charges as a way for applying the golden ratio in the sales-costs of production ratio in competitive equilibrium, leading to an optimal unitary charge of 0.2361… with many economic applications in monetary economics as well as in finance, public economics and taxation, migration flows, VAT on goods and services and commercial trading. Other applications are also suggested for further research. This paper can be useful for mathematical and applied economists, public financiers, bankers and policy and lawmakers.

This study examines the response of real stock returns to expected inflation and uncertainty as measured by state variable correlated with equity market volatility (EMV). Evidence reveals a significantly negative relationship between real stock returns and expected inflation for each country except some cases in India and Japan. Evidence indicates a negative relationship between real stock returns and uncertainty, which is measured not only by the impact of the Fed’s monetary policy uncertainty but also from various state variables that covary with EMV. These elements have not been explicitly incorporated into test equations in previous studies of the inflation-stock return relationship. The model is robust in its ability to test data for both advanced and emerging markets, level or the first difference of explanatory variables, and various categorical EMVs. Evidence shows that the Fed’s rate hikes respond to the inflation data, displaying a nonlinear impact on real stock returns.

In this study, I analyze the impact of the aggregate, income, corporate and social security tax revenues on both the U.S. output and the stock market return in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) framework between 1960:Q1 and 2015:Q4. Unlike some of the other studies, I use aggregate and disaggregated tax revenue variables to examine the impact of scal policy. Results show that an increase in aggregate tax revenue reduces output and market return. In addition, an increase in income, corporate, and social security tax revenues reduces output and the market return signi cantly at varying degrees.

Using data from the Japanese government bonds and stock markets, this study examines the predictability of Japanese recessions based on a probit model with instrument variables. By decomposing the term spread into the expected short-term interest rate and the term premium, this study analyzes the relationship between the components of the term spread and recessions. The results show that the predictive power of the term spread for recessions has declined since 1999—when Japan began employing an unconventional monetary policy. Additionally, stock market capitalization relative to nominal GDP is a useful predictor of recessions.

The study analyses the long growth rate period contribution to human development in West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) from 1996 to 2019 introducing time and institutional indicators effects analyses. Time and institutional effects both greatly improve model's diagnostics statistics. Time effects reduce growth variable coefficient and its significance, but not institutional effects. Combined effects inhibit growth contribution to human development. It appears essential to increase the resiliency of growth and the efficiency of government institutions.

Gold has been traditionally well recognized as a safe heaven for financial markets. Lately, Bitcoin has been gradually considered as a popular alternative. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, it has become even more necessary and critical to examine the diversification capability of them to hedge financial risks associated with an unexpected crisis comparable to the pandemic. This paper hence employs the wavelet analysis, complemented by the multivariate DCC-GARCH approach, to measure the coherence of the gold and Bitcoin prices with six representative stock market indices, three for developed economies and three for emerging economies, all of which are heavily affected by the pandemic. To have a more balanced and comprehensive analysis, two-year data are used, spanning from 12th April 2019 to 15th April 2021, which covers approximately one year before and one year after the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that the returns of both gold and Bitcoin are generally not strongly correlated with the market returns of all six indices, particularly for short-term investment horizons. That is, investors in all six indices can benefit through gold, as well as Bitcoin, in terms of hedging. Meanwhile, compared with Bitcoin, gold shows to be less correlated with the indices, particularly for long-term investment horizons. The findings hence suggest that gold and Bitcoin offer diversification benefits to investors in the market indices during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for short-term investment horizons. The study also reminds policymakers thinking beyond the pandemic about the future of the earth, including air pollution and health, for sustainable development of the whole world.

This study documents the relationship between economic freedom and unauthorized immigration to the U.S.A. and tries to answer a still-in-debate question, what motivates people to unauthorizedly migrate? Using the generated instrument variables methodology, and a data panel of 15 countries and 16 years, the endogenous variable is the gap in economic freedom between the country of origin and the U.S., and the dependent variable is the unauthorized immigrant’s growth rate. The results show that for each 10% improvement in economic freedom in the country-of-origin unauthorized immigration decreases around 7%. Estimations are robust even after using other covariates and external instruments. The main conclusion is that economic and social factors play a significant role in shaping migration patterns and that the difference in economic freedom between the country of origin and the U.S. plays a fundamental role in deciding to unauthorizedly migrate

The Paper investigates the elasticity of substitution between foreign direct investment (FDI) and private domestic investment on the external reserves of some selected 14 African countries. To achieve the objective of the best substitutability of investment suitable for Africa, using data on gross fixed capital formation as a proxy for private domestic investment, inflation, external reserves, and foreign direct investment. From the Empirical literature reviewed, studies on the substitutability of investments in external reserves in Africa have not yet been addressed. The Dynamic General Methods of Moments (DGMM) was employed for the analysis since the African countries are more than the scope of the study which ranges from 2010 to 2022. The results show that foreign direct investment is preferred to private domestic investment in Africa. Additionally, the elasticity of substitution from FDI to domestic private investment was found to be stronger and more elastic than the contrary. Therefore, the study recommends that African countries should focus on strengthening fixed assets to create more revenue from additional fixed assets which would impact more on the external reserves of Africa, by attracting foreigners.

The paper examines how the growth of entrepreneurship affects the generation of employment opportunities in Nasarawa State. Even though entrepreneurship is crucial for generating employment, there are still obstacles in the way of its growth. These include limited support from governmental and non-governmental organizations, difficulty obtaining financing and microcredit, proper training and enlightenment etc. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the growth of entrepreneurship affects the creation of jobs in Lafia, Nasarawa State. The study used a descriptive research design, and the means used for gathering data was a questionnaire given to new entrepreneurs in Lafia, Nasarawa State. A sample size of 375 was determined from a population of 1604 using a Smith (1984) sampling formula; this sample represented the number of questionnaires that were delivered. This findings of the research demonstrated that the creation of jobs in Nasarawa State is significantly impacted by the growth of entrepreneurship. This implies that through entrepreneurship development, self-reliance and employment opportunities have been created in Lafia, Nasarawa State. Through this, youths have been able to develop a way to create value in the society. More so, this study revealed that access to credit (micro credit) has a significant effect on employment creation in the State. Having acquired knowledge on how to manage finance they make sound financial decisions. Lastly, the study showed that the number of new businesses established has a significant effect on employment creation in Nasarawa State. This result implies that youths who apply their entrepreneurship skills and creativity in one nature of business or the other have been able to earn a living out of it in Nasarawa State. This paper thus suggests that the Nasarawa State government should genuinely recognize the relevance of entrepreneurship development and provide an enabling environment. Both the government and institutions should ensure that youths get adequate financial credit (micro-credit).

This study simultaneously tests Wagner’s law on one hand and Keynes proposition on the other hand related both government spending and output in Ivory Coast that experiencing long run economic growth and widened deficit. That challenges the country’s fiscal sustainability. With annual data from 1980 to 2020, results show that Wagner’s law holds, the elasticity of government spending to output is greater than one. There is bidirectional causality between government size and output validating Keynesian idea that public expenditure is an exogenous factor and a policy instrument for increasing national income. Wagner law and public deficit can justify Ivorian over-indebtedness.