For the Bundesbank, it is of high importance to identify changes in expectations in society at large at an early stage and to take them into consideration as soon as possible in monetary policy decision processes. Thus, the Bundesbank is analysing households’ expectations about future economic developments in Germany in a multi-year study, measured, amongst other things, in terms of the expected development of the inflation rate and property prices.

The advantages or disadvantages firms experience as a result of their size, referred to in the economic literature as returns to scale, are of central importance in many economic models. Increasing returns to scale, whereby unit costs decrease as output volume increases, could explain productivity differences between Europe and the United States. We present fresh evidence on the returns to scale of European firms: most exhibit constant returns to scale, but a non-trivial share also show increasing returns to scale.

Bundesbankpräsident Joachim Nagel über die aktuelle Geldpolitik im Euroraum.