Ilona Van Schaik
- 27 March 2023
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 311Details
- Abstract
- Over the past decade, geopolitical developments – and the policy responses to these by major economies around the world – have challenged economic openness and the process of globalisation, with implications for the economic environment in which central banks operate. The return of war to Europe and the energy shock triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 are the latest in a series of episodes that have led the European Union (EU) to develop its Open Strategic Autonomy (OSA) agenda. This Report is a broad attempt to take stock of these developments from a central banking perspective. It analyses the EU’s economic interdependencies and their implications for trade and finance, with a focus on strategically important dimensions such as energy, critical raw materials, food, foreign direct investment and financial market infrastructures. Against this background, the Report discusses relevant aspects of the EU’s OSA policy agenda which extends to trade, industrial and state aid measures, as well as EU initiatives to strengthen and protect the internal market and further develop Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The paper highlights some of the policy choices and trade-offs that emerge in this context and possible implications for the ECB’s monetary policy and other policies.
- JEL Code
- F0 : International Economics→General
F10 : International Economics→Trade→General
F30 : International Economics→International Finance→General
F4 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
F5 : International Economics→International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
F45 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
L5 : Industrial Organization→Regulation and Industrial Policy
Q43 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→Energy and the Macroeconomy
- 21 September 2021
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 263Details
- Abstract
- This paper assesses how globalisation has shaped the economic environment in which the ECB operates and discusses whether this warrants adjustments to the monetary policy strategy. The paper first looks at how trade and financial integration have evolved since the last strategy review in 2003. It then examines the effects of these developments on global productivity growth, the natural interest rate (r*), inflation trends and monetary transmission. While trade globalisation initially boosted productivity growth, this effect may be waning as trade integration slows and market contestability promotes a winner-takes-all environment. The impact of globalisation on r* has been ambiguous: downward pressures, fuelled by global demand for safe assets and an increase in the propensity to save against a background of rising inequality, are counteracted by upward pressures, from the boost to global productivity associated with greater trade integration. Headline inflation rates have become more synchronised globally, largely because commodity prices are increasingly determined by global factors. Meanwhile, core inflation rates show a lower degree of commonality. Globalisation has made a rather modest contribution to the synchronised fall in trend inflation across countries and contributed only moderately to the reduction in the responsiveness of inflation to changes in activity. Regarding monetary transmission, globalisation has made the role of the exchange rate more complex by introducing new mechanisms through which it affects financial conditions, real activity and price dynamics. Against the background of this discussion, the paper then examines the implications for the ECB’s monetary policy strategy. In doing so, it asks two questions. How is the ECB’s economic and monetary analysis affected by globalisation? And how does globalisation influence the choice of the ECB’s monetary policy objective and instruments? ...
- JEL Code
- E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
F42 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→International Policy Coordination and Transmission
F44 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→International Business Cycles
F62 : International Economics→Economic Impacts of Globalization→Macroeconomic Impacts
F65 : International Economics→Economic Impacts of Globalization→Finance