Digital euro
The Eurosystem is preparing for the potential issuance of a digital euro to complement physical cash.
PUBLICATION
9 April 2026
Updates on measuring buffer usability and other concepts
It’s vital that we know how banks can use capital buffers. In a new joint ECB-ESRB report, we define key concepts and develop a toolkit for evaluating how buffers can be used and released under the prudential and resolution frameworks.
Read the report
PODCAST
7 April 2026
The economic fallout of tariffs and war
Tariffs are the highest in a century and the war in Iran has triggered a fresh energy shock. Uncertainty remains high. What does this mean for euro area growth and inflation?
Our host Paul Gordon discusses these questions and more with Christiane Nickel.
Listen to the latest episode of Euro Matters
THE ECB BLOG
9 April 2026
Euro adoption and prices in Bulgaria
Many Bulgarians feared large price increases when the euro replaced the lev. However, preliminary evidence shows that the changeover in Bulgaria has so far had a limited impact on consumer prices and on perceptions of inflation.
Read The ECB Blog- 9 April 2026
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Annexes
- 9 April 2026
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT - COMMENTARY
- 9 April 2026
- EURO AREA ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS BY INSTITUTIONAL SECTOR (EARLY)
- 9 April 2026
- BALANCE OF PAYMENTS (QUARTERLY)
- 1 April 2026
- MFI INTEREST RATE STATISTICS
- 31 March 2026
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (22) +Annexes
- 31 March 2026
- WEEKLY FINANCIAL STATEMENT - COMMENTARY
- 1 April 2026
- Public lecture by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at an event hosted by the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Latvijas Banka
- 27 March 2026
- Slides by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at Department of Economics at University of Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland
- 26 March 2026
- Speech by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the Ragnar Nurkse Memorial Lecture organised by Eesti Pank
- 25 March 2026
- Slides by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at The ECB and Its Watchers XXVI, in Frankfurt, Germany
- 25 March 2026
- Keynote speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at “The ECB and Its Watchers” conference organised by the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability at Goethe University Frankfurt
- 23 March 2026
- Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Carlos Segovia on 20 March 2026
- 8 March 2026
- Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Benedetta Poletti on 12 February 2026
- 3 March 2026
- Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Olaf Storbeck on 26 February 2026
- 21 February 2026
- Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Emma Tucker, Chelsey Dulaney, Greg Ip, Nick Timiraos, Daniel Colarusso and Amol Sharma on 19 February 2026
- 19 February 2026
- Interview with Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, conducted by Laura Noonan and Nick Comfort on 17 February 2026
- 9 April 2026
- Many Bulgarians feared large price increases when the euro replaced the lev. However, preliminary evidence shows that the changeover in Bulgaria has so far had a limited impact on consumer prices and on perceptions of inflation.Details
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
Related - 7 April 2026
- Europe’s energy dependence increasingly complicates the task of maintaining price stability. Meeting the continent’s clean‑energy targets would weaken the link between volatile global markets and domestic prices. Crucially, the tools to make this transition are already within reach.Details
- JEL Code
- E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
Q40 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→General
Q50 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→General
- 2 April 2026
- As the Eurosystem normalises its balance sheet, central bank reserves – banks’ most liquid asset – keep declining. This post examines how banks adapt to lower levels of reserves and explains why take-up in the Eurosystem’s standard refinancing operations is expected to increase.Details
- JEL Code
- E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 31 March 2026
- Inflation expectations are crucial for monetary policy as they shape economic decisions and feed through to inflation. While expectation surveys provide insights, they come with blind spots. We use a model to transform infrequent survey data into a dense grid of expectations.Details
- JEL Code
- C53 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Forecasting and Prediction Methods, Simulation Methods
E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
- 30 March 2026
- Today’s supervisory framework for EU capital markets is complex and fragmented. Integrated supervision would strengthen supervisory consistency, improve cross-border risk detection and support market integration, providing stronger foundations for the savings and investments union.Details
- JEL Code
- G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
G20 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→General
G30 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→General
F30 : International Economics→International Finance→General
- 9 April 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3217Details
- Abstract
- We revisit the credit channel of monetary policy when firms face multiple financing constraints, a common feature of corporate financing we document empirically. Our theory shows that the multiplicity of constraints dampens the transmission of expansionary policy to firm borrowing and investment notably but amplifies the transmission of policy tightening. This asymmetry arises because, when policy tightens (eases), the most (least) responsive constraint binds. Using U.S. firm-level data and exploiting a quasi-natural experiment, we find strong support for these predictions and for our proposed channel. Embedding the mechanism into a New Keynesian framework, we find that the drop in investment after contractionary shocks is twice as large as its increase following equally-sized expansionary shocks, thus providing an explanation for why monetary policy tightenings have stronger effects than easings, a longstanding puzzle in monetary economics. Moreover, our analysis implies that the effectiveness of monetary policy is strongly determined by the distribution of financial constraints across firms and that similar asymmetries likely characterize the transmission of other macroeconomic shocks.
- JEL Code
- D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
D25 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations
E22 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Capital, Investment, Capacity
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy - Network
- Challenges for Monetary Policy Transmission in a Changing World Network (ChaMP)
- 9 April 2026
- OTHER PUBLICATION
- 8 April 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3216Details
- Abstract
- We use a comprehensive Swedish credit register to document that firms across the size distribution have access to substantial borrowing capacity via credit lines. However, most firms choose not to use all available credit, even though interest rates are low compared to their return on equity. The low utilization of credit is consistent with a theoretical model in which utilization rates decrease with both real and financial uncertainty. We estimate the model structurally at the firm level and find that financial uncertainty driven by liquidity shocks is much more important than real uncertainty driven by cash flow shocks for explaining the low utilization of credit.
- JEL Code
- D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G32 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Financing Policy, Financial Risk and Risk Management, Capital and Ownership Structure, Value of Firms, Goodwill
- 7 April 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3215Details
- Abstract
- Using a survey of 39,507 adults in 17 euro-area countries, I find that crypto-asset owners and the niche subgroup of payers have distinct profiles. Owners – typically younger, male, and financially active – exhibit mixed preferences, valuing both cash-like privacy and card-like speed. Crypto payers display a cash-centric profile, seeking to replicate physical cash’s privacy and ease of use in digital form. While standard specifications show that holding cash reserves is positively associated with owning crypto – challenging the view that early adopters reject cash –, a multiple-instrument IV strategy exploiting pandemic-related payment shocks reveals a causal sign reversal: for compliers, building precautionary cash buffers reduces the probability of crypto ownership under uncertainty. These findings (1) explain the ownership-payment wedge as driven by user profiles beyond merchant-acceptance frictions, (2) show crypto and cash act as portfolio complements but substitutes under stress, and (3) may inform crypto regulation and CBDC design.
- JEL Code
- E41 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Demand for Money
E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
G11 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Portfolio Choice, Investment Decisions
O33 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Technological Change, Research and Development, Intellectual Property Rights→Technological Change: Choices and Consequences, Diffusion Processes
- 7 April 2026
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 385Details
- Abstract
- This article provides a novel insight into whether earnings manipulation signals are reflected in banks’ internal credit risk estimates, as measured by the probability of default (PD) estimates, and whether such manipulation has an impact on credit risk (point in time or deferred). The hypothesis is that firms engaging in manipulation may be exposed to increased credit risk over time, which should be reflected in higher PD values. Using AnaCredit – a granular dataset covering credit exposures from European banks between 2019 and 2022 – and financial statement data from Orbis, we constructed a sample of 4,649 publicly traded corporations, for which we computed the Beneish M-Scores that are used to detect potential earnings manipulation. This allowed us to determine the interrelation with PDs. Our results reveal a weak and negative correlation between M-Scores and PDs, suggesting that earnings manipulation signals are not fully absorbed by banks’ internal models. Further analysis shows that these results are driven by the high prevalence of firms with no earnings manipulation signals. Firms for which the M-Score effectively indicates potential earnings manipulation (8.9% of the sample) are observed to have higher PDs, which also increase further as the M-Score worsens. These findings support the hypothesis that earnings manipulation signals are not fully reflected in credit risk estimates over time, indicating that their impact – when it occurs – is deferred instead of being captured immediately in internal models. Our results indicate that the relationship between potential earnings manipulation and banks’ internal credit risk estimates is highly context-dependent and non-linear. Cross-sectional analyses by country and industry show consistent patterns linking default risk to M-Scores in selected countries and sectors. [...]
- JEL Code
- G32 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Financing Policy, Financial Risk and Risk Management, Capital and Ownership Structure, Value of Firms, Goodwill
M41 : Business Administration and Business Economics, Marketing, Accounting→Accounting and Auditing→Accounting
M42 : Business Administration and Business Economics, Marketing, Accounting→Accounting and Auditing→Auditing
C33 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
- 2 April 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3214Details
- Abstract
- Repo markets clear either bilaterally over the counter (OTC) or through central counterparties (CCPs), which differ in how counterparty risk is priced. In bilateral markets, repo rates reflect borrower-specific risk, while CCP clearing pools counterparties and applies a common pricing rule. We develop a model of security-driven repo in which repo rates are non-linear in borrower risk. As a result, averaging borrower-specific OTC prices yields more negative rates than pricing the pooled borrower in CCP markets. The model predicts that the CCP–OTC specialness gap compresses during periods of counterparty uncertainty and varies with borrower and collateral characteristics. Using transaction-level data from the euro-area interbank repo market around the March 2020 COVID-19 shock, we find evidence consistent with these predictions. Our results show that central clearing dampens specialness in normal times but stabilizes repo pricing during stress.
- JEL Code
- D47 : Microeconomics→Market Structure and Pricing→Market Design
D82 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Asymmetric and Private Information, Mechanism Design
G14 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Information and Market Efficiency, Event Studies, Insider Trading
G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 2 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETINEnglishOTHER LANGUAGES (20) +
- 2 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- This box describes the Eurosystem liquidity conditions and monetary policy operations in the seventh and eighth reserve maintenance periods of 2025, from 5 November 2025 to 10 February 2026.
- JEL Code
- E40 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→General
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
- 2 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- The rise in very long-term yields over the past year has steepened the slopes between 30-year and ten-year yields in several advanced economies, including the euro area as a whole. This box explores the implications of this steepening for financial markets and intermediaries and also considers the broader macroeconomic outcomes. While higher very long-term yields are expected to have only a limited effect on government funding costs, the yield curve steepening is translating into higher rates on mortgages with long fixation periods. However, financial conditions indices that summarise asset prices with macroeconomic relevance remain essentially unaffected by the inclusion of very long-term maturities. In addition, empirical estimates suggest that the steepening of the long-end yield curve is having only a modest effect on euro area inflation and real GDP, with the impact being significantly smaller than that of changes in short-term rates. Overall, the findings indicate that while the steepening is affecting funding costs and financial intermediaries, its implications for broader financial conditions and macroeconomic dynamics remain contained.
- JEL Code
- E43 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
- 2 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- Over recent years we have observed that different oil market states can significantly influence how oil prices respond to shocks. Using a non-linear local projections framework, we find that oil prices react more strongly to oil supply shocks when key state variables – namely, investment fund positions, supply-demand imbalances and oil inventories – are at extreme levels, regardless of the sign of the shock. Further distinguishing between the sign of the shock and whether a state variable is unusually high or low provides additional insights. Upside risks to oil prices are most critical when oil supply is tight relative to demand, and investors hold very long positions at the time of an oil price surge. Conversely, downside risks are most pronounced when oil prices start to decrease in an environment of ample supply, and investors hold very short positions, leading to particularly large declines in oil prices.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
Q41 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→Demand and Supply, Prices
Q43 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Energy→Energy and the Macroeconomy
- 2 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- Cross-border payments are often slow and costly and, in some cases, may not be available. In line with the G20 Roadmap, several countries and regions, including the euro area, are working to interlink their domestic fast payment systems to improve speed, cost and transparency. Econometric evidence suggests that countries with interlinked systems trade about 4% more with each other – around half of the effect of a trade agreement and a quarter of the effect of a common currency. The gains of interlinking fast payment systems are larger in regions with high cross-border payment costs and for systems that allow the settlement of wholesale transactions.
- JEL Code
- E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
F15 : International Economics→Trade→Economic Integration
F30 : International Economics→International Finance→General
- 1 April 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - ARTICLEEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- The EU is faced with massive strategic public investment needs in an environment of limited fiscal space. Raising the spending efficiency of public investment, especially in countries with limited fiscal space, can ease the funding of the strategic investment needs while safeguarding debt sustainability. The article analyses the efficiency in public investment spending on transport infrastructure, which is the largest component of public investment across the EU, and finds substantial room for improvement.
- JEL Code
- H40 : Public Economics→Publicly Provided Goods→General
H54 : Public Economics→National Government Expenditures and Related Policies→Infrastructures, Other Public Investment and Capital Stock
H60 : Public Economics→National Budget, Deficit, and Debt→General
- 1 April 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3213Details
- Abstract
- We study how trade wars propagate to countries that are not directly targeted. We develop a three-country New Keynesian model with trade in final and intermediate goods, incomplete asset markets, and asymmetric monetary regimes, and quantify the spillovers of the 2025 U.S.-China tariff escalation to the euro area. A bilateral U.S.-China trade war generates large and asymmetric welfare losses for the U.S. and China, while the euro area benefits temporarily from trade diversion. Once tariffs extend to euro-area goods, third-country welfare flips into losses and the Chinese downturn deepens. Welfare-maximizing retaliatory tariffs by the euro area deliver only modest domestic improvements, at the cost of large additional losses for the U.S. and China. Overall, the global incidence of trade policy is intrinsically multilateral: third-country gains under bilateral protectionism are short-lived, reverse once protection broadens, and cannot be inferred from two-country analysis.
- JEL Code
- F30 : International Economics→International Finance→General
F40 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→General
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
- 31 March 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- This box presents new information about the adoption of, and investment in, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by euro area firms, based on the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE). The findings reveal that large firms, listed or venture capital-backed companies and young firms are adopting AI more frequently. Firms using AI are more likely to expect an increase in turnover and investment in fixed assets compared with firms not using AI. Similarly, they plan to allocate larger shares of their investment to AI compared with non-users, indicating a reinforcing cycle of adoption and innovation. Ownership structure influences investment patterns, with listed or venture capital-backed companies leading early-stage adoption and privately owned firms dominating at more advanced stages.
- JEL Code
- C83 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology, Computer Programs→Survey Methods, Sampling Methods
D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
L25 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
O33 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Technological Change, Research and Development, Intellectual Property Rights→Technological Change: Choices and Consequences, Diffusion Processes
- 31 March 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3212Details
- Abstract
- The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), launched in 2021, aims to promote long-term economic growth in EU Member States by incentivising structural reforms and investments. This paper explores a related supply-side transmission mechanism: improvements in institutional quality, as measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators. Using a Bayesian synthetic control model and data up to 2024, we find robust and economically meaningful RRF-induced improvements in institutional quality in Italy. For other main RRF beneficiary countries, the evidence of such an effect ranges from suggestive to limited. We show that this cross-country variation is broadly consistent with the implementation of the national Recovery and Resilience Plans in terms of implementation speed and reform mix. While it is too early to draw firm policy conclusions, the findings lend support to the view that conditional, reform-linked financing instruments of the RRF type can improve institutional quality and, thereby, long-term growth prospects – provided that the reforms are well designed and effectively implemented.
- JEL Code
- C11 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Bayesian Analysis: General
E02 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→General→Institutions and the Macroeconomy
E65 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
O43 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity→Institutions and Growth
- 31 March 2026
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 384Details
- Abstract
- In April and in October 2025 China imposed export controls on rare earths amid escalating trade tensions with the United States. Although these measures were too short-lived to generate macroeconomic effects, they signalled China’s ability to draw on its dominant position in the rare earth supply chain. This paper provides a structured assessment of the potential macroeconomic consequences associated with rare earth supply disruptions. First, it documents that exposure to rare earth supply disruptions is concentrated in high-tech and security-sensitive sectors including automotive, electronics and defence-related industries. Second, drawing on earlier episodes of Chinese export restrictions on critical minerals (notably in 2010 and 2023), it highlights two key mitigating forces from the targeted countries’ perspective: practical and strategic constraints on China’s ability to implement strict export bans, and innovation-led substitution by targeted countries. Third, the paper quantifies the global macroeconomic implications of a hypothetical scenario of stringent but partial Chinese export restrictions on rare earths lasting for 18 months. To do so, the analysis combines, for the various segments of the transmission chain, a partial equilibrium setup, a closed-economy DSGE model, and the multi-country multi-sector dynamic model of Aguilar et al. (2026). The main results, across specifications, suggest estimated output losses for the United States ranging between 0.3% and 0.6%, with the largest impacts concentrated in automotive and electronics manufacturing. The results at the same time highlight the sensitivity of model-based estimates to assumptions on the substitutability of rare earths and the severity of restrictions.
- JEL Code
- F13 : International Economics→Trade→Trade Policy, International Trade Organizations
F17 : International Economics→Trade→Trade Forecasting and Simulation
C63 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Mathematical Methods, Programming Models, Mathematical and Simulation Modeling→Computational Techniques, Simulation Modeling
C68 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Mathematical Methods, Programming Models, Mathematical and Simulation Modeling→Computable General Equilibrium Models
Q37 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation→Issues in International Trade
- 31 March 2026
- OTHER PUBLICATION
- 31 March 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- This box provides a first assessment of digital investment trends in the euro area by using proxies derived from annual national accounts and monthly production data. As there is no standardised measurement framework, our definition of digital investment covers investment in buildings and structures in the information and communication sector, investment in ICT equipment and computer software and databases in the business economy, and investment in research and development in the information and communication sector. The proxy shows that there has been a gradual increase in digital investment, likely driven most recently by the surge in global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and cloud services. Looking ahead, the share of digital investment in overall business investment is expected to continue growing, supported, among other factors, by venture capital, Next Generation EU funding and the EU AI Continent Action Plan. However, survey results point to concerns that insufficient energy supply and overregulation could hamper further growth.
- JEL Code
- E22 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Capital, Investment, Capacity
E66 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→General Outlook and Conditions
G31 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Capital Budgeting, Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies, Capacity
- 30 March 2026
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 2, 2026Details
- Abstract
- Trade policy uncertainty has risen sharply since late 2024 and remained at exceptionally high levels in 2025. This box investigates the implications of elevated trade policy uncertainty for euro area economic activity. It discusses the main transmission channels and shows that euro area sentiment tends to deteriorate when trade policy uncertainty rises. Empirical estimates suggest that the increase in trade policy uncertainty in 2025 weighed on euro area output and affected the manufacturing sector most significantly. Nevertheless, thanks to a number of offsetting factors, overall economic activity remained resilient.
- JEL Code
- E21 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Consumption, Saving, Wealth
D81 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
- 30 March 2026
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 3211Details
- Abstract
- We quantify the effect of severe weather shocks on the US economy in an environment in which the economy can switch between periods of financial stability and financial instability, like the Great Recession. We estimate a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with banks and severe weather events. We show that severe weather shocks: 1) have a negative impact on real and financial US variables, sizable only in periods of financial instability, but muted effects on nominal variables; 2) are never a relevant source of business cycles fluctuations; 3) transmit mainly via a deterioration in the quality of capital.
- JEL Code
- Q54 : Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, Environmental and Ecological Economics→Environmental Economics→Climate, Natural Disasters, Global Warming
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
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