Monetary Policy in the Euro Area
Strategy and Decision-Making at the European Central Bank

A non-technical analysis of the monetary policy strategy, institutions and operational procedures of the Eurosystem, first published in 2001.

Otmar Issing (Author), Vitor Gaspar (Author), Ignazio Angeloni (Author), Oreste Tristani (Author)

9780521783248, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 July 2001

210 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.466 kg

'This book has a significant advantage over other technical studies on similar topics. It has succeeded in providing a coherent and sufficiently transparent analysis of economic and policy-related problems. Monetary economics can be hardly accessible to non-economists, but the four authors have made of it a fascinating scientific area showing that it shares many common features with disciplines as diverse as politics, linguistics and management.' Journal of European Affairs

How and for whose benefit the European Central Bank (ECB) will work is the most important issue facing Europe, and has been the subject of vast media and academic interest which has already spawned a vast literature of discussion papers in the academic literature, and 'Euro Watch' features. Much of this discussion has been of an increasingly hysterical and political nature and has served to blur rather than inform. This book, written by a team at the ECB, including Otmar Issing the ECB's Chief Economist, provides the first comprehensive, inside, non-technical analysis of the monetary policy strategy, institutional features and operational procedures of the Eurosystem. The goals and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy are explored, as are the theoretical and empirical results underpinning the 'stability-oriented monetary policy strategy' adopted by the ECB. The characteristics of this strategy are also discussed in comparison with suggested alternatives.

Introduction
1. Money, output and prices: the scope of monetary policy
2. Monetary policy making: strategies and rules
3. The Euro area: an overview
4. The ECB strategy: defining price stability
5. The role of money
6. The broadly based assessment
7. The ECB strategy: an overall view
8. The operational framework
9. Accountability and transparency
10. The single monetary policy in 1999.

Subject Areas: Banking [KFFK], Political economy [KCP], Monetary economics [KCBM], Macroeconomics [KCB], Regional studies [GTB]