European Central Bank – Publications

19 January 2026By Alena WabitschIn 2025 Alena Wabitsch won the ECB’s Young Economist Prize with the research highlighted in this blog post. Applications for the 2026 Prize will be open soon. For more details, go to the dedicated webpage.The way central banks communicate has a profound impact on how people perceive monetary policy. But who delivers messages also matters. This ECB Blog post explains how the messenger can affect both the reach…

16 January 2026By Benjamin Böninghausen and Andreea Liliana VladuThe euro area yield curve steepened significantly in 2025 as long-term and especially very long-term interest rates increased. This ECB Blog post dissects what happened and explores key drivers behind the unusually strong shift.Over the course of 2025, many debtors in the euro area faced the phenomenon that borrowing over longer time periods has become more costly relative to borrowing over the…

15 January 2026By Pietro Bellamio, Catarina De Melo Branco, Julika Herzberg, Małgorzata Osiewicz, Sofia Papadopoulos, Eva Pereira, Dimitra Theleriti and Caroline WillekeThe ESCB has strengthened its climate indicators, introducing new breakdowns of sustainable bonds, data on how inflation affects banks’ carbon intensity metrics, and improved data and models assessing physical risks. This ECB Blog post offers a quick overview of the enhancements.Statistical climate indicators are continuously evolving. The European System…

6 January 2026By David Barkhausen, Gabriel Glöckler and Stefan RuhkampCentral banks often struggle to make themselves understood to the wider public. Visuals can help to change this. The ECB Blog travels across the globe to showcase the creative ways in which central banks communicate monetary policy.In today’s world, a wealth of information meets with a poverty of attention. Central banks are special in many ways, but they cannot escape the…

23 December 2025By Alexander Jung Are independent central banks better at ensuring price stability? A study of 155 central banks over 50 years shows why independence makes a difference. Central banks that are shielded from government control are able to pursue more credible monetary policies and are therefore better at keeping prices stable.Recent political pressure on central banks in some countries to ease their policy rates irrespective of the macroeconomic…

9 December 2025By Piero Cipollone and Valdis DombrovskisThe ECB plans to prepare for the potential issuance of the digital euro by 2029, assuming the European co-legislators adopt the necessary regulation by 2026. Preparatory steps, including pilot exercises and initial transactions, could begin as early as mid-2027.From barter to coins to banknotes to cards, the payment systems Europeans have relied on have never stopped evolving. Throughout history, innovations have made these…

28 November 2025By Martin Bijsterbosch, Matteo Falagiarda and Lucia ŽídekováGeopolitical tensions such as the war in Ukraine have shaken Europe’s economies. Understanding the economic impact of such shocks is crucial for monetary policy. This ECB Blog post presents a news-based indicator that tracks country-level geopolitical risk.Geopolitical tensions around the world have increasingly affected European economies and slowed down growth. Armed conflicts and other tensions between states and political actors can…

20 November 2025By Alessandro De Sanctis, Roberto A. De Santis, Daniel Kapp and Francesca VinciTo bridge Europe’s investment gap, we need both public and private funding. Well-designed EU investment programmes can act as a major catalyst for private capital. As this blog post shows, every euro invested by the EU is matched by private finance, thereby doubling its impact.Europe is facing an unprecedented need for investment to support its green,…

19 November 2025By Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECBOur 2025 macroprudential stress test report shows that banks are resilient. But when we look at risks not included in the EU-wide stress test, we see some pockets of vulnerability. These findings support a cautious approach to capital buffers.Broadening the 2025 EU-wide bottom-up stress testThis year’s EU-wide stress test[1] showed that banks are resilient under the adverse scenario,[2] thanks to strong…

10 November 2025By Petra Köhler-Ulbrich, Yuma Schuster and Nikoleta Tushteva Banks consider the climate performance of firms and buildings in their lending policies. The euro area bank lending survey shows that lower climate risks tend to improve credit conditions. Meanwhile, green investments increase loan demand from firms and households.Reducing a firm’s carbon emissions or improving the energy efficiency of a building can help businesses and households to get a loan…

7 November 2025By Anamaria Piloiu, Oleg Reichmann and Florian ReschClimate risks affect credit ratings. And these, in turn, influence how banks can use securities as collateral to borrow money. This post takes a closer look at how the Eurosystem integrates climate change risks into its own collateral framework, through the credit risk channel.Central banks must prepare for the financial risks that come with rising temperatures and fast-evolving green policies. In…

4 November 2025By Ferdinand Dreher and Nils HernborgMany Bulgarians are still hesitant about giving up the Lev on 1 January. Mixed feelings are not uncommon in countries adopting the euro. However, survey data show that support significantly increases once people start using the euro in their daily lives. When countries prepare to adopt the euro, public sentiment is often hesitant or split. People tend to worry about prices going up,…

20 October 2025by Conny Olovsson and Alexander Popov The economist Robert Lucas famously wrote that “Once one starts to think about economic growth, it is hard to think about anything else.” The Nobel committee seems to agree. For the second year in a row, it has chosen to honour work on economic growth. This ECB Blog post looks at the research of this year’s laureates.Last Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy…

17 October 2025By Pauline Avril, Maciej Grodzicki, Lukas Jürgensmeier and Alessandro RicciBanks have bought back over €60 billion of their own shares since 2020, which is a sign of the industry’s confidence. However, share buybacks can also reduce the capital banks have available for potential crises. This blog post examines how euro area banks’ share prices reacted to these buybacks.Share buybacks indicate that a bank’s management is confident in its…

2 October 2025By Anastasia Allayioti, Giada Bozzelli, Paola Di Casola, Caterina Mendicino, Ana Skoblar and Sofia VelascoUncertainty is a key force shaping economic conditions. This post shows that heightened uncertainty about economic policy in the United States significantly affects firm lending in the euro area. This weighs on investment and reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy.Periods of heightened economic policy uncertainty exert significant pressure on economic outcomes. They dampen business…

14 July 2025By Ulrich Bindseil*TARGET Services are the backbone of Europe’s financial market infrastructure. Like a spine, they have to be both strong and supple. Strong enough to process large volumes and values while maintaining high levels of performance, and supple and flexible enough to respond to changing needs, technologies and geopolitical conditions.Free flow of central bank money, securities and collateralTARGET Services comprise T2, TARGET2-Securities (T2S), TARGET Instant Payment Settlement…

13 July 2025By Miles ParkerJuly 2025 began with yet another heatwave across Europe. ECB research finds such events can substantially reduce economic activity in affected regions and increase food prices. With global warming, future heatwaves are likely to have more pronounced economic effects.With a hot and sticky start to July in Frankfurt, sleep has been difficult. My daughter has been a bit grumpy. As have I. Those are just the…

11 July 2025By Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECBEuropean banks have made forward strides in managing climate and nature-related risks. But more still needs to be done as we often see that practices are only applied to a subset of relevant exposures, geographic areas and risk categories. To help banks improve further, later this year the ECB…

9 July 2025By Sabine Mauderer and Livio Stracca[1]Climate change is no longer “the Tragedy of the Horizon”, as Mark Carney put it, but an imminent danger. In the next five years, extreme weather events could already put up to 5% of the euro area’s economic output at risk, according to the new short-term scenarios of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).Climate-related risks are an immediate concern for financial…

8 July 2025By Claudia Marchini and Alexander PopovOver the last 25 years the EU’s trading partners have become less and less democratic. The ECB Blog investigates the background of this development and the dynamics at play.Do democratic values play a role in trade? While the weakening of democratic norms around the globe has sparked renewed interest in this question, economic theory and historical examples do not provide a definitive answer.On…

3 July 2025By José Manuel Campa and Isabel SchnabelEuropean and national authorities have joined forces with banks to integrate reporting requirements across Europe. This will reduce costs for banks and improve data quality. In this blog post we describe the European integrated reporting initiative and present some initial results.Collecting data from banks is essential for authorities to conduct monetary policy, supervision and resolution. But banks in Europe are facing more…

27 June 2025By Elena Banu, Johanne Evrard, Daniel Jonas Schmidt and Michael WedowThere is now an urgent need to channel retail savings into European capital markets in order to develop those markets and finance EU priorities. In this edition of the ECB Blog, we show that an EU savings standard could increase retail participation in the capital markets, benefiting savers, boosting investment in EU companies and supporting strategic priorities.[1]There are…

20 June 2025By David BarkhausenMemories of hyperinflation live on in public debates on money. In the case of Germany, the trauma of 1923 is widely seen as the source of the country’s preference for fiscal discipline and stability-oriented central banking. Historical analysis sheds new light on the collective memory and its genesis.How we think, feel and talk about money is shaped by the past. And depending on where we grow…

17 June 2025By Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central BankFor the euro to reach its full potential, Europe must strengthen three foundational pillars: geopolitical credibility, economic resilience and legal and institutional integrity.We are witnessing a profound shift in the global order: Open markets and multilateral rules are fracturing, and even the dominant role of the US dollar, the cornerstone of the system, is no longer certain. Protectionism, zero-sum thinking…

10 June 2025By Benjamin Böninghausen and Florian HartmannGeopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty are injecting unpredictability into global financial markets. What seems like rock-solid market sentiment today can turn into jitters tomorrow. In this ECB Blog, we present a new risk appetite indicator to systematically track such shifts in market sentiment.Market swings – important beyond the trading floorCentral banks need to keep an eye on market sentiment as it signals…

28 May 2025By Pedro Baptista, Maarten Dossche, Andrew Hannon, Dorian Henricot, Omiros Kouvavas, Davide Malacrino and Larissa ZimmermannDespite recent ECB rate cuts, the average interest rate on mortgages is expected to increase further. This is because of lagged effects from the latest hiking cycle. The ECB blog shows that the resulting drag on consumption could last at least until 2030.Mortgage contracts often have interest rates fixed for long periods, or…

23 May 2025By Andrej Ceglar, Francesca Danieli, Irene Heemskerk, Mark Jwaideh and Nicola RangerThe degradation of natural ecosystems slows growth and leads to financial instability. Water scarcity, natural flood protection and water quality are most critical. Surface water scarcity alone puts almost 15% of the euro area’s economic output at risk.The euro area economy depends heavily on natural ecosystems and the services they provide. These include clean water, flood protection,…

8 May 2025By Oscar Arce, Agostino Consolo, António Dias da Silva and Marco WeisslerForeign workers play an increasingly important role in the euro area labour markets. This ECB blog analyses the effects migrants had on growth across the largest countries in recent years. It also discusses changing labour market participation patterns among foreign workers.Sluggish productivity growth and weak capital accumulation have hampered post-pandemic recovery in the euro area.[1] Amid this…

5 May 2025By Gert Bijnens, John Hutchinson and Arthur Saint Guilhem Lasting high energy prices are putting pressure on industries all across Europe. This is hitting some regions, such as southern Germany, the Ruhr and northern Italy, harder than others. The ECB Blog examines the implications for employment. High energy costs threaten the competitiveness of European firms and weigh on employment. Based on firm-level data, we estimate that a permanent…

29 April 2025By Imène Rahmouni-Rousseau and Isabel Schnabel[1]At the end of 2024 – after nearly five years of operations, more than 110,000 bond market transactions and peak holdings of €1.7 trillion – reinvestments under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) came to an end. This blog post takes stock and highlights some aspects of PEPP implementation in light of the data we now make publicly available.In March 2020 the ECB…

25 April 2025By Benjamin Hartung, Tobias Linzert, Imène Rahmouni-Rousseau, Yannik Schneider and Marta Skrzypińska[1]One year after its announcement, the new operational framework is working as intended. Euro area banks have adapted to declining central bank reserves as the Eurosystem's balance sheet is normalising. The ECB Blog assesses how banks and money markets cope with the new environment. The normalisation of monetary policy over recent years has also meant declining amounts…

18 April 2025By Fédéric Holm-Hadulla and Sebastiaan PoolCentral banks usually seek to align very short-term interest rates in the money market with their own policy rate. But money market rates fluctuate also for reasons other than policy. This blog shows that monetary policy is more effective if such fluctuations are small.Discussions about monetary policy usually centre on whether interest rates should go up, down or stay the same. The complexities…

7 April 2025By Olivier Coibion, Dimitris Georgarakos, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Geoff Kenny and Justus MeyerMilitary and diplomatic conflicts harm economic growth. This ECB blog shows that the expected length of wars matters for how strongly they weigh on consumer sentiment.[1]Geopolitical tensions can make consumers worry about their personal financial future and the economy at large. Data from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey (CES)[2] suggests both notable concerns about geopolitical tensions and…

4 April 2025By Emil Bandoni, Giorgia De Nora, Margherita Giuzio, Ellen Ryan and Manuela StorzInstitutional investors are increasingly active in housing markets across Europe. The ECB blog examines implications for house price growth and the transmission of monetary policy. Institutional investors have been shaking up Europe’s housing markets over the past decade: if you are renting in major cities like Paris, Dublin or Madrid, there is a good chance your…

28 March 2025By Antonin Bergeaud, Guzmán González-Torres Fernández, Vincent Labhard and Richard SellnerWe constantly hear of exciting new ways AI tools can help to tackle economic problems and the productivity gains they bring. However, benefits can only materialize when firms actually use AI.This post is part of a miniseries related to the ECB conference “The Transformative Power of AI”, on 1-2 April 2025, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Learn…

25 March 2025By Miles ParkerAI adoption requires enormous amounts of electricity. And so does greening the economy. Are the digital and green transitions clashing or can they be successfully achieved together? The ECB Blog takes a closer look.This post is part of a miniseries related to the ECB conference “The Transformative Power of AI”, on 1-2 April 2025, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Learn more here.Two of the biggest…

21 March 2025By António Dias da Silva and Marco WeisslerAI is already part of many workers’ daily routines. Some fear losing their jobs, but most don’t. The ECB Blog looks at how workers are using AI tools, how they feel about it and what that means for work in the future.This post is part of a miniseries related to the ECB conference “The Transformative Power of AI”, on 1-2 April…

18 March 2025By Claudia Buch and Isabel SchnabelAs the normalisation of the Eurosystem balance sheet progresses, the aggregate amount of central bank liquidity available to banks in the euro area will fall over the coming years. This blog explains the role played by the Eurosystem’s refinancing operations within the operational framework for monetary policy implementation. The ECB, both as a monetary policy authority and as a supervisor, expects that banks…

7 March 2024 By Clémence Berson, Vasco Botelho, Luis Guirola Abenza, Laura Hospido, Friderike Kuik, Christiane Nickel and Manuel Rojo Lopez The gender gap in labour markets is narrowing. But this process has slowed down. The ECB Blog gives an overview of recent developments for all euro area countries. The gender gap at work is closing – but slowly. Women are paid less for their work than men are.[1] Inequality…

20 February 2024Pedro Baptista, Colm Bates, António Dias da Silva, Maarten Dossche and Marco WeisslerEuro area firms hold on to their workforce, despite poor economic conditions. For a significant share of workers this means a lower workload than usual. In turn, many put more money aside as they worry about job security and wages, as the ECB Blog shows.When the economy slows down, so does labour productivity. This link is…