Dear friends of the International and Monetary Economics Network
Our network is growing fast. In 2026, we will further expand our activities and contributions to debates on international economics, monetary policy, and related topics.
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In our webinars and in-person events, members of the network or guests are invited to present. If you’re interested, please contact us or fill out this form.
Webinar: Asset Purchase Programs and the Exchange Rate (Sinem Toraman, European Stability Mechanism)
- April 1, 12:00 – 13:00 Central European Summer Time
- Online via Zoom, link will be sent
- Link to the paper
REGISTRATION HERE Sinem Yagmur Toraman is an Economist at the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in Luxembourg. She earned a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, advised by Professors Jonathan Wright, Alessandro Rebucci and Olivier Jeanne. In our recent interview with her, she told us: “The key finding of the paper is that financial-stability QE operates differently from conventional monetary-policy QE. I show that asset purchase programs in emerging markets can appreciate the exchange rate by reducing sovereign credit risk. This is important because it suggests that these policies can help EMs to stabilize exchange rates during periods of distress, without necessarily implementing foreign exchange intervention. Interestingly, we also find some suggestive evidence of similar mechanisms in AEs, for example, in the case of the Bank of England (see Alessandro Rebucci and Sinem Toraman (2022): “Financial-Stability QE Can Appreciate the Exchange Rate”).”
The full interview can be read HERE.
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Public lecture: Too-Big-To-Fail Regulation: What’s Next? (Too-Big-To-Fail Regulierung: Wie geht es weiter?) Public lecture by Vera Imfeld (Head Banking Unit, State Secretariat for International Finance).
- March 17, 18:30 – 19:30 Central European Time
- Fabio Canetg is the moderator of this event.
- University of Bern, main building, room HS 101, Hochschulstrasse 4, Bern
- In German, followed by a reception
REGISTRATION HERE ————————————————
On May 5, the day after the European Union published its Industrial Accelerator Act, we enjoyed an insightful webinar with Peter Obinger (Austrian Economic Chamber) on the topic: „EU Industrial Policy in a Changing Global Economy“
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A number of central banks will soon hold their monetary policy meetings and decide on their next steps. We invite you to participate in our surveys:
Poll: Fed
Poll: ECB
Poll: SNB
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Here is what caught our eye (selection): Commodity price fluctuations, the economics of tariffs, the history of globalization, central bank digital currencies, and much more…
This looks like a must-read!
“The Economics of Tariffs“ by Ralph Ossa and Stephen J. Redding.
“A central insight from neoclassical economics is that international trade operates like an improvement in production technology. It generates mutual aggregate welfare gains for countries as a whole, but creates winners and losers within countries. Tariffs are a tax on this trading technology and distort the prices faced by domestic consumers and producers. Large countries can use tariffs to improve their terms of trade on world markets. But if all countries try to do so, they can end up with lower welfare than if they cooperated to liberalize trade. …Empirical findings from the recent waves of U.S. tariffs suggest that most of the incidence of these tariffs has been borne by U.S. importers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers rather than by foreign exporters. These tariffs have led to a large-scale reorganization of U.S. supply chains away from China to third countries. Although this reorganization has substantially reduced China’s share of U.S. imports, the U.S. remains indirectly exposed to China through the imports of these third countries.”
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Highly recommended!
Join the Master’s Information Days at the Department of Economics, University of Bern, and learn more about the specialised programmes. The events will take place in person or online.
Master in International and Monetary Economics
Registration for the online events of all the Master’s programmes at the University of Bern
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Super interesting!
“Beyond Oil: The Origins of Commodity Price Fluctuations” by Alvin Lumbanraja, Sarah Mouabbi, Evgenia Passari, and Adrien Rousset Planat.
“Commodity supply shocks are a plausible but empirically elusive source of business-cycle fluctuations. We develop a comprehensive framework to measure them, constructing daily supply and demand proxies for 20 commodities—spanning energy, metals, agriculture, and livestock—from textual analysis of over one million news articles (2001–2023). These measures allow us to separate supply from demand across the full commodity market, not just oil. A striking finding emerges: non-oil supply disruptions affect inflation and industrial production at least as strongly as oil disturbances, a result previously undocumented in the literature. Transmission varies sharply with countries’ commodity trade positions: net importers experience more persistent output contractions and stronger inflation pass-through, while net exporters are partially insulated.”
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Highly recommended!
“Central Bank Digital Currency and Monetary Architecture” by Dirk Niepelt.
“We review the macroeconomic literature on retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), organizing the discussion around a CBDC-irrelevance result. We identify both fundamental and policy-related sources of relevance, or departures from neutrality. Bank disintermediation—the crowding out of deposits—does not, by itself, constitute such a source. We argue that the literature has primarily focused on policy-related sources of non-neutrality, often without making this focus explicit. From a macroeconomic perspective, CBDC is, at its core, a matter of monetary architecture, and political economy considerations are central to understanding CBDC policy design.”
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Highly recommended! “Chris Meissner on the History of Globalization” (MacroMusings with David Beckworth)
“I think over the last 200 years, we’ve really seen what globalization can do, and in many cases, reap the benefits from greater integration. It would be hard to see too much backsliding over the long run. Now, over the short run—and that’s something we could talk about in a moment—but over the short run, there can be bumps in the road, of course.”
The recent book by Christopher M. Meissner is also super interesting: “One From the Many: The Global Economy Since 1850”
“A long-run view suggests that rising integration and growth of global economy can generate economic benefits and raise welfare. Given these lessons, the global economy will almost surely survive and integration will continue to grow. However, globalization can only survive if humanity continues to recognize its common interests and the untapped potential of further integration. At the same time, the potential adverse effects of greater integration must be acknowledged, mitigated, and minimized.”
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“The Macroeconomic Consequences of AI“ by Moody’s (Mark Zandi, Cristian deRitis, Marisa DiNatale, Dante DeAntonio, Matt Colyar, Shandor Whitcher, Justin Begley, Ilir Hysa, and Gwen Semmens).
“Many technologists deeply involved in AI’s development believe it will massively increase productivity, resulting in significant net job loss and much higher unemployment. Conversely, most economists who look to the economic history of past general-purpose technologies tend to be more circumspect, expecting AI to lift productivity but also to diffuse slowly enough through the economy that the job market adjusts more gracefully. There may be bouts of higher unemployment, but any increase will be modest, as jobs lost to AI will be largely offset by new jobs supported by the income and wealth it creates. How this ultimately unfolds is all but impossible to fathom. Therefore, in this study, we consider several scenarios that put some bounds around the possibilities that economists are contemplating.” “We determine the macroeconomic consequences of these scenarios over the next decade through simulations of our large-scale model of the U.S. and global economies.”
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Food for thought!
“The ECB’s bid to strengthen the euro’s global role“ by Sander Tordoir and Spyros Andreopoulos.
“…the currency world is becoming less monolithic, and the dollar’s role as global anchor is no longer guaranteed. In that environment, the ECB’s liquidity framework becomes strategically important. By expanding and institutionalising its euro liquidity lines, the ECB can help translate shifting global conditions into lasting demand for euro assets – and ensure that Europe captures a larger role in a less dollar-centred system.”
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“Looser, tighter, clearer: a new Financial Conditions Index for the euro area“ by Tilman Bletzinger, Giulia Martorana, and Jakub Mistak.
“Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) are a widely used tool for assessing the broader monetary policy stance beyond the central bank’s direct control. This paper presents a novel vector autoregressive (VAR) model that includes key macroeconomic variables and maps financial variables into a single index, named Macro-Finance FCI. …A structural identification of supply, demand, and financial shocks indicates that financial conditions require up to one year to transmit to the real economy and almost up to two years to inflation.”
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Global Economy Flash March 2026
Global GDP growth remains solid and global trade has proven more resilient than expected. However, higher tariffs and protectionism will weigh on global growth and trade in 2026 and 2027. In addition, the war in Iran has led to higher energy prices and an increased fragility of various global supply chains. Against the backdrop of these new developments, we have slightly lowered our forecasts for economic growth in 2026.
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In case you missed our last Macro Bites:
Macro Bite: An AI-Macro Observatory – Just in Case
Macro Bite: Euro area – How are you doing?
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We are always open to collaborations. Please feel free to contact us.
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