IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/evoice/v16y2019i1p13n8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Complexity, Uncertainty, and Monetary Policy: Can the ECB Avoid the Unconventional Becoming the ‘New Normal’?

Author

Listed:
  • Hartwell Christopher A.

    (Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)

Abstract

Worries about Italy and the unresolved issue of euro governance – coupled with uncertainty surrounding Brexit – means that the European Central Bank (ECB) may already be facing its next crisis in the euro area. Unfortunately, the ECB is still fighting the last war, deploying the tools of unconventional monetary policy to address lingering problems while unable institutionally to address needed structural change. This paper looks at the ECB as an institution amongst institutions and shows how even more unconventional approaches will not help to bolster the economy of the euro area. Indeed, given the complexity of money, the effects of expectations, and continued uncertainty, expanding the ECB’s unconventional arsenal is likely to have deleterious consequences across Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Hartwell Christopher A., 2019. "Complexity, Uncertainty, and Monetary Policy: Can the ECB Avoid the Unconventional Becoming the ‘New Normal’?," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:evoice:v:16:y:2019:i:1:p:13:n:8
    DOI: 10.1515/ev-2019-0021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ev-2019-0021
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ev-2019-0021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lewis E. Hill & Charles E. Butler & Stephen A. Lorenzen, 1977. "Inflation and the Destruction of Democracy: The Case of the Weimar Republic," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 299-313, June.
    2. Ashoka Mody & Damiano Sandri, 2012. "The eurozone crisis: how banks and sovereigns came to be joined at the hip [‘A pyrrhic victory? Bank bailouts and sovereign credit risk’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 27(70), pages 199-230.
    3. L. Wray, 2007. "A Post Keynesian view of central bank independence, policy targets, and the rules versus discretion debate," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 119-141.
    4. Otmar Issing, 2017. "Central banks—are their reputations and independence under threat from overburdening?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 92-99, March.
    5. Philippe Martin & Thomas Philippon, 2017. "Inspecting the Mechanism: Leverage and the Great Recession in the Eurozone," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1904-1937, July.
    6. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Stefan Nagel & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2018. "ECB Policies Involving Government Bond Purchases: Impact and Channels [The “greatest” carry trade ever? Understanding eurozone bank risks]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-44.
    7. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theophilopoulou, Angeliki, 2017. "The impact of monetary policy on inequality in the UK. An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 410-423.
    8. Picault, Matthieu & Renault, Thomas, 2017. "Words are not all created equal: A new measure of ECB communication," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 136-156.
    9. Michele Lenza & Huw Pill & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Monetary policy in exceptional times [Preventing deflation: Lessons from Japan’s experience in the 1990s]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 25(62), pages 295-339.
    10. Gibson, Heather D. & Hall, Stephen G. & Tavlas, George S., 2016. "The effectiveness of the ECB's asset purchase programs of 2009 to 2012," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA), pages 45-57.
    11. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Rebucci, Alessandro, 2017. "Does easing monetary policy increase financial instability?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 111-125.
    12. Bernd Hayo & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2013. "Behind closed doors: Revealing the ECB’s decision rule," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 37, pages 135-160, October.
    13. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2008. "Inflation, Central Bank Independence, and the Legal System," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(4), pages 751-777, December.
    14. Saka, Orkun & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Kalotychou, Elena, 2015. "ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 168-185.
    15. Mas, Ignacio, 1995. "Central bank independence: A critical view from a developing country perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 1639-1652, October.
    16. Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "Random Walks, Breaking Trend Functions, and the Chaotic Structure of the Velocity of Money," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 6, pages 119-130, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Stephan Kohns, 2017. "Monetary Policy and Financial Stability," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(1), pages 17-18, 04.
    18. Milton Friedman, 1961. "The Lag in Effect of Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69, pages 447-447.
    19. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2017:i:1:p:19307486 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Falagiarda, Matteo & Reitz, Stefan, 2015. "Announcements of ECB unconventional programs: Implications for the sovereign spreads of stressed euro area countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 276-295.
    21. Soliman, A. S., 1996. "Transitions from stable equilibrium points to periodic cycles to chaos in a phillips curve system," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 139-153.
    22. DeCoster, Gregory P & Mitchell, Douglas W, 1991. "Nonlinear Monetary Dynamics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(4), pages 455-461, October.
    23. Juan A. Montecino & Gerald Epstein, 2015. "Did Quantitative Easing Increase Income Inequality?," Working Papers Series 28, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    24. Cancelo, José Ramón & Varela, Diego & Sánchez-Santos, José Manuel, 2011. "Interest rate setting at the ECB: Individual preferences and collective decision making," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 804-820.
    25. Hartwell, Christopher A., 2019. "Short waves in Hungary, 1923 and 1946: Persistence, chaos, and (lack of) control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 532-550.
    26. Matthieu Picault & Thomas Renault, 2017. "Words are not all created equal: A new measure of ECB communication," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03205121, HAL.
    27. Stephen Cecchetti & Mr. Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli & Mr. Machiko Narita, 2017. "Does Prolonged Monetary Policy Easing Increase Financial Vulnerability?," IMF Working Papers 2017/065, International Monetary Fund.
    28. van Riel, Arthur & Schram, Arthur, 1993. "Weimar Economic Decline, Nazi Economic Recovery, and the Stabilization of Political Dictatorship," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 71-105, March.
    29. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/59bp0vqv2b8k7a185vg2hert9v is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Jäger, Jannik & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2017. "The effectiveness of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy: Comparative evidence from crisis and non-crisis Euro-area countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 21-43.
    31. Eser, Fabian & Schwaab, Bernd, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of unconventional monetary policy measures: Empirical evidence from the ECB׳s Securities Markets Programme," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 147-167.
    32. Urszula Szczerbowicz, 2015. "The ECB Unconventional Monetary Policies: Have They Lowered Market Borrowing Costs for Banks and Governments?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(4), pages 91-127, December.
    33. Stephan Kohns, 2017. "Monetary Policy and Financial Stability," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(01), pages 17-18, April.
    34. Koyama, Mark & Johnson, Blake, 2015. "Monetary stability and the rule of law," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 46-58.
    35. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hartmann, Philipp & Smets, Frank, 2018. "The first twenty years of the European Central Bank: monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2219, European Central Bank.
    2. Rostagno, Massimo & Altavilla, Carlo & Carboni, Giacomo & Lemke, Wolfgang & Motto, Roberto & Saint Guilhem, Arthur & Yiangou, Jonathan, 2019. "A tale of two decades: the ECB’s monetary policy at 20," Working Paper Series 2346, European Central Bank.
    3. Carsten M. Stann & Theocharis N. Grigoriadis, 2020. "Monetary Policy Transmission to Russia and Eastern Europe," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(2), pages 303-353, June.
    4. Philipp Hartman & Frank Smets, 2018. "The European Central Bank’s Monetary Policy during Its First 20 Years," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(2 (Fall)), pages 1-146.
    5. Ortmans, Aymeric & Tripier, Fabien, 2021. "COVID-induced sovereign risk in the euro area: When did the ECB stop the spread?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    6. Salomon Fiedler & Isabel Hanisch & Dr. Nils Jannsen Hanisch & Prof. Dr. Maik Wolters, 2017. "Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Euro Area: An Assessment Based on a Literature Survey," Credit and Capital Markets, Credit and Capital Markets, vol. 50(4), pages 455-488.
    7. Ashoka Mody & Milan Nedeljkovic, 2018. "Central Bank Policies and Financial Markets: Lessons from the Euro Crisis," Working Papers 253, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    8. Jäger, Jannik & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2017. "The effectiveness of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy: Comparative evidence from crisis and non-crisis Euro-area countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 21-43.
    9. Ashoka Mody & Milan Nedeljkovic, 2018. "Central Bank Policies and Financial Markets: Lessons from the Euro Crisis," CESifo Working Paper Series 7400, CESifo.
    10. Hartwell, Christopher A., 2019. "Short waves in Hungary, 1923 and 1946: Persistence, chaos, and (lack of) control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 532-550.
    11. Aymeric Ortmans & Fabien Tripier, 2020. "COVID-Induced Sovereign Risk in the Euro Area: When Did the ECB Stop the Contagion?," Working Papers 2020-11, CEPII research center.
    12. Motto, Roberto & Özen, Kadir, 2022. "Market-stabilization QE," Working Paper Series 2640, European Central Bank.
    13. Agur, Itai & Demertzis, Maria, 2019. "Will macroprudential policy counteract monetary policy’s effects on financial stability?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 65-75.
    14. Niels Gilbert, 2019. "Euro area sovereign risk spillovers before and after the ECB's OMT announcement," DNB Working Papers 636, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    15. Gómez-Puig, Marta & Pieterse-Bloem, Mary & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2023. "Dynamic connectedness between credit and liquidity risks in euro area sovereign debt markets," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. repec:prs:ecstat:estat_0336-1454_2017_num_494_1_10781 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Chiara Perillo & Stefano Battiston, 2020. "Financialization and unconventional monetary policy: a financial-network analysis," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1385-1428, November.
    18. Beaupain, Renaud & Girard, Alexandre, 2020. "The value of understanding central bank communication," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 154-165.
    19. Andreas Beyer & Benoît Coeuré & Caterina Mendicino, 2017. "Foreword – The crisis, ten years after: Lessons learnt for monetary and financial research," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 494-495-4, pages 45-64.
    20. Christophe Blot & Paul Hubert & Jérôme Creel & Caroline Bozou, 2023. "The conditionality of monetary policy instruments," Working Papers hal-04159848, HAL.
    21. Jäger, Jannik & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2016. "Soft budget constraints, European Central Banking and the financial crisis," Discussion Papers 2016/7, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    complexity; euro; European Central Bank; monetary policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F45 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Macroeconomic Issues of Monetary Unions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:evoice:v:16:y:2019:i:1:p:13:n:8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.