How Large Is the Risk of Stagflation in the Eurozone?

The rapid recovery of demand combined with supply constraints has led to rising prices during the past months. This is evident in oil and gas markets, but also in international trade, which has been thrown out of step by bottlenecks at Asian ports. This situation creates a trade-off for the European Central Bank, because a more expansionary monetary policy cannot mitigate the supply bottlenecks and supply-side restrictions, while a more restrictive monetary policy would slow down the economic recovery.

Why the COVID-19 Pandemic Could Increase the Corporate Saving Trend in the Long Run.

Given the global trend in corporate saving over the last decades, the COVID-19 crisis raises doubts about the persistence of companies' saving behaviour due to the losses which have occurred in many companies caused by the isolation of households and by lockdowns. Before the pandemic, corporate net lending activities had been increasing for decades due to various factors ranging from the rise in uncertainty after the global financial crisis to the increased reliance on internal funding for research and development expenditures. In Germany, the rise in corporate saving was accompanied by an increase in equity capital and a reduction in the corporate sector's reliance on bank loans.

[The Corona Pandemic and the Stability of the Banking System: The Solution is in the Real Economy].

Although it was feared that the corona pandemic could worsen the balance sheet quality of banks and financial intermediaries, bank stabilisation has not yet been the focus of economic policy measures to overcome the effects of the corona pandemic. Rather, the effects of the lockdown have impacted several sectors of the real economy. So far, stationary retail trade, the tourism sector and hotels and restaurants have been hit by the lockdown.