At the beginning of 2015, the ECB Governing Council decided to implement an asset purchase programme to increase inflation by lowering longer-term interest rates. The Research Brief examines how the programme has affected prices and economic activity in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The authors are particularly interested in whether the effects differ across countries.

The December 2020 edition of the Monthly Report outlines Germany’s economic outlook for 2021 to 2023 and explores the informative value of national fiscal indicators in the case of debt at the European level. In addition, it describes the national implementation of the European banking package in Germany through the Risk Reduction Act (Risikoreduzierungsgesetz – RiG) and analyses the profitability and financing of German enterprises in 2019.

Estimates by the Bundesbank suggest that banknotes worth around €268 billion were in circulation in Germany in 2018. Of that amount, roughly 20% was used directly for transactions. The other, far larger share – somewhere in the region of €200 billion – was being hoarded, i.e. stored for an extended period of time by households and firms.