<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>EconStor Collection:</title>
    <link>https://hdl.handle.net/10419/97709</link>
    <description />
    <pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 06:21:05 GMT</pubDate>
    <dc:date>2026-04-29T06:21:05Z</dc:date>
    <item>
      <title>Central bank independence: An update</title>
      <link>https://hdl.handle.net/10419/337453</link>
      <description>Title: Central bank independence: An update
Authors: Eijffinger, Sylvester C. W.; de Haan, Jakob
Abstract: Central bank independence (CBI) refers to the absence of influence of politicians on monetary policy making. Since we wrote our first surveys of the literature on central bank independence (Eijffinger and de Haan, 1996 and Berger et al., 2001), a lot has changed. The level of CBI has increased considerably in almost all countries, also more recently. According to Romelli (2024), following a slowdown in central bank law reforms between 2010 and 2015, after 2016 reforms led to further increases in independence in 35 cases, while it declined in only 7 cases. However, Garriga (2025) argues that although there is a global tendency towards more CBI, there is significant variance across and within regions, including numerous reforms reducing CBI in the past two decades.</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hdl.handle.net/10419/337453</guid>
      <dc:date>2026-01-01T00:00:00Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Selected European law challenges related to the use of artificial intelligence payment agents</title>
      <link>https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338107</link>
      <description>Title: Selected European law challenges related to the use of artificial intelligence payment agents
Authors: Grabowski, Michał; Costea, Iulia
Abstract: This article examines the EU-law challenges arising from the use of artificial intelligence for payment initiation and execution ("Payment Agents") under European Union law. It focuses on Payment Agents that support purchasing workflows and are capable of initiating payments in both human-in-the-loop and human-out-of-the-loop environments. The article conceptualises Payment Agents as agentic systems and develops three regulatory models: (i) a protocol-only model, (ii) a model based on the involvement of a licensed payment service provider under PSD2, and (iii) a contract-based model with separated roles for a Payment Agent Provider and a Credentials Provider. It concludes that Payment Agents will, as a rule, qualify as "AI systems" within the meaning of the AI Act, whereas payment protocols should be understood as transactional infrastructure rather than general-purpose AI models. Typical agentic payment use cases are not currently listed as high-risk AI systems under Annex III of the AI Act. Under PSD2, the protocol-only model may amount to payment initiation services when it initiates transactions from a payment account, which implies licensing and strong customer authentication. This configuration resembles screen scraping. Agentic payments are not equivalent to merchant initiated transactions (MIT), where the payee initiates the transaction within scheme processing. In the contract-based model, the Credentials Provider can often be aligned with a pass-through wallet and a technical services provider. Depending on design, the arrangement may resemble a payment scheme and may trigger outsourcing under the EBA outsourcing framework and, for ICT services, DORA. The article concludes that existing legal institutions address the risks only partially. It argues that mitigation would be stronger if agentic payments were expressly recognised as a high-risk use case under the AI Act.</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338107</guid>
      <dc:date>2026-01-01T00:00:00Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Energy price shocks and inflation in the Euro Area</title>
      <link>https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338106</link>
      <description>Title: Energy price shocks and inflation in the Euro Area
Authors: Hegemann, Hendrik
Abstract: The Euro Area experienced historically high inflation in 2022, with energy prices playing a central role. This paper examines the joint impact of various energy price shocks on inflation in the Euro Area, with a focus on the period encompassing the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Using a structural VAR model, the analysis identifies shocks to gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas, and electricity prices and evaluates their effects on headline and core inflation. Historically, before the pandemic, gasoline price shocks had the most substantial impact on the Euro Area HICP, while the effects of other energy price shocks were relatively minor. Spillover effects to non-energy goods were very limited, implying negligible effects on core inflation. Extending the sample to May 2023 reveals a notable change in these relationships. In particular, natural gas price shocks become substantially more important and exhibit significantly more persistent effects on inflation. In contrast to previous findings for the United States, the results suggest that energy prices, especially natural gas price shocks, played a major role in the surge in the HICP and core HICP during 2021 and 2022 within the Euro Area.</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338106</guid>
      <dc:date>2026-01-01T00:00:00Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Economic theory and central bank independence</title>
      <link>https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338105</link>
      <description>Title: Economic theory and central bank independence
Authors: Illing, Gerhard
Abstract: During the last decades, central bank independence proved to be the bedrock of credible and effective monetary policy. Both past and recent history provides plenty of evidence of disastrous outcomes with high inflation and economic stagnation, when central banks - lacking independence - were put under strong political influence. Game theoretic modeling provides valuable insights into the crucial role of independence. In a fiat money economy (with costs for producing additional pieces of paper money being close to zero) a commitment for price stability is key. In the absence of binding rules, it would not be dynamically consistent to stick to the promise to implement price stability. The model by Barro Gordon Model (1982) is the work horse model for game theoretic analysis. It builds on the seminal work of Kydland Prescott (1977) on dynamic inconsistency. The starting point of Barro Gordon is a short run Phillips curve, causing a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing output. If there are structural distortions in the economy, the promise to stick to some target rate not credible: There is an incentive to stimulate economy by raising above target rate of inflation to raise output. Private agents anticipate this incentive; they raise expected inflation ex ante. So the optimal policy is not dynamic consistent (in game theoretic terms: not subgame perfect). This leads to an inflation bias: Inflation being too high, without any gain in output and employment. So ex post, discretionary policy ends up in an inferior outcome.</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338105</guid>
      <dc:date>2026-01-01T00:00:00Z</dc:date>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

