For central banks, official communications serve as essential monetary policy instruments: In press releases, speeches, and interviews, central banks explain their decisions, manage expectations, and promote confidence in their strategy. This Weekly Report analyzes European Central Bank (ECB) communications from January 2019 to March 2025 using a specially trained artificial intelligence (AI) text ...
Aligned with the war in Ukraine, Russia has significantly withheld natural gas exports to Europe since 2021. As there are no EU-wide sanctions on imports of Russian natural gas, the Ukraine transit as well as imports via Turkey and LNG have remained active during 2022–24. However, the Russian-Ukrainian transit agreement expires at the end of 2024 and discussions about new sanctions on natural gas as ...
This paper examines how news coverage of the European Central Bank (ECB) affects consumer inflation expectations in the four largest euro area countries. Utilizing a unique dataset of multilingual European news articles, we measure the impact of ECB-related inflation news on inflation expectations. Our results indicate that German and Italian consumers are more attentive to this news, whereas in Spain ...
This paper studies and compares the effect of different adverse life events -- job loss, disability and health shocks, divorce and spousal death -- on individuals' income trajectories. We use a harmonized design across events in terms of methodology and data: matching difference-in-difference with exhaustive Dutch administrative registers. We assess the effect of adverse events on different...
Disruptions of labor market trajectories have lasting effects on later economic success. Displacement due to forced labor conscription is a disruption that remains understudied despite its continued prevalence in contemporary contexts. I investigate the consequences of exposure to forced labor conscription for individuals' long-term labor market outcomes. I exploit the fact that cohorts of Dutch...
The study offers a comprehensive retrospective assessment of the Aviation Guidelines related to State Aid, evaluating their effectiveness and efficiency in promoting regional development and enhancing accessibility while minimizing competitive distortions. The analysis focuses on three primary areas: It examines whether the 2014–2024 transition period for phasing out operating aid to airports...
DECIPHE is the first project to comprehensively study whether and how profound demographic changes in Europe impact the intergenerational persistence of homeownership, considering variations across countries, regions, and birth cohorts. It adopts a life course framework on housing tenure, in which individuals’ homeownership is shaped by their household members’ preferences and resources and...