Financial institutions

SAFE to update inflation expectations? New survey evidence on euro area firms

06/24/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

This paper provides new survey evidence on firms’ inflation expectations in the euro area. Building on the ECB’s Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE), we introduce consistent measurement of inflation expectations across countries and shed new light on the properties and causal effects of these expectations. We find considerable heterogeneity in firms’ inflation expectations and show that firms disagree about future inflation more than professional forecasters but less than households.

SAFE to update inflation expectations? New survey evidence on euro area firms

06/24/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

This paper provides new survey evidence on firms’ inflation expectations in the euro area. Building on the ECB’s Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE), we introduce consistent measurement of inflation expectations across countries and shed new light on the properties and causal effects of these expectations. We find considerable heterogeneity in firms’ inflation expectations and show that firms disagree about future inflation more than professional forecasters but less than households.

Owner-occupied housing and inflation measurement

06/24/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) currently only includes rentals for housing (paid by tenants) and auxiliary housing expenditures (paid by both tenants and owners). The inclusion of an item for owner-occupied housing (OOH) would be desirable for both representativeness and cross-country comparability. This paper reviews the potential options for including OOH in the HICP to derive a new inflation index. We discuss the conceptual and measurement issues involved.

FEDS Paper: CRE Redevelopment Options and the Use of Mortgage Financing

06/21/2024 Federal Reserve Central banks

David Glancy, Robert Kurtzman, and Lara LoewensteinA significant share of commercial real estate (CRE) investment properties—about half by our estimates—are purchased without a mortgage. Using comprehensive microdata on transactions in the U.S. CRE market, we analyze which types of properties are purchased without a mortgage, highlighting the important role of renovation or redevelopment options.

The importance of being positive: costs and benefits of a positive neutral rate for the countercyclical capital buffer

06/20/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

This article explores the benefits of a positive neutral rate for the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) and the conditions shaping the economic costs of its activation in a general equilibrium framework. The analysis shows that a gradual build-up of the buffer and favourable banking sector conditions (e.g. high profitability) limit these economic costs.

Credit risk and bank lending conditions

06/20/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

This box investigates the factors underlying the growing, but still moderate, deterioration in bank credit quality against the backdrop of weak economic activity, rising interest rates and increases in the number of corporate bankruptcies. First, drawing on granular credit register data, we show that banks have actively rebalanced their loan portfolios towards safer assets, potentially curbing a build-up of credit risk on their balance sheets.

Profit indicators for inflation analysis considering the role of total costs

06/20/2024 European Central Bank Central banks

Standard indicators of profits in the economy derived from national accounts are based on GDP rather than on output and therefore do not consider the role of intermediate consumption. Differences between GDP-based and output-based profit indicators can be pronounced when there are exceptional developments in the cost of intermediate consumption, as recently observed. This box therefore proposes a new profit indicator based on total supply, which is a measure that corresponds more closely to output than GDP.

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