Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/105882 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
IMK Working Paper No. 6/2006
Publisher: 
Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Institut für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung (IMK), Düsseldorf
Abstract: 
In order to explain slow growth and high unemployment in the Euro area, in particular if compared to the USA, we follow a macroeconomic policy view focussing on the more restrictive stance of monetary, fiscal and wage policies in the Euro area. In the present paper we focus on the particular role of monetary policy, because the European Central Bank (ECB) seems to be the major obstacle to higher growth and employment. Analysing the macroeconomic policy mix, wage policies and fiscal policies are taken into account at the outset, but then the determinants of ECB policies are assessed in more detail. Our analysis confirms that it is the ECB's overemphasising a too low inflation target which is a major problem for macroeconomic performance in the Euro area. The ECB is too exclusively occupied with inflation and wage developments and pays too little attention to the development of real variables. In order to improve growth and employment and to limit the risks of deflation in the largest economy of the Euro area, Germany, it is therefore required that the ECB raises its inflation target and that the central bank focuses more on real economic activity.
Subjects: 
Monetary policy
macroeconomic policy mix
Euro area
JEL: 
E52
E58
E61
E63
E65
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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