Central banks

Human rights, the climate emergency, and the financial system

On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a landmark ruling in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland. The ruling was handed down together with two further rulings in Duarte Agostinho and others v. Portugal and others, and in Carême v. France. The ruling marked the first time the ECtHR held that insufficient climate action by a state constitutes a violation of human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Main findings from the ECB’s recent contacts with non-financial companies

This box summarises the findings of recent contacts between ECB staff and representatives of 71 leading non-financial companies operating in the euro area. According to these exchanges, which took place between 29 September and 9 October 2025, business conditions improved slightly in recent months, but they remained consistent with only modest growth in activity, with the manufacturing sector still weighed down by tariffs, uncertainty and challenges to competitiveness. The employment outlook also remained relatively subdued. Price growth continued to moderate.

FPC’s welcoming statement for policy statement (PS) 20/25 – The Strong and Simple Framework: The simplified capital regime for Small Domestic Deposit Takers (SDDTs) – near final

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) welcomes today the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA’s) policy statement 20/25 – The Strong and Simple Framework: The simplified capital regime for Small Domestic Deposit Takers (SDDTs) – near-final.

Fiscal announcements and households’ beliefs: evidence from the euro area

This paper studies the effects of fiscal policy announcements on household expectations. We document announcements of price-related expansionary fiscal measures in response to the cost-of-living crisis in the four largest euro area economies and exploit the exogenous timing of fiscal actions relative to household survey participation to estimate their causal effects. Following fiscal announcements, households revise their beliefs: inflation perceptions rise, and unemployment perceptions fall.

Fiscal announcements and households’ beliefs: evidence from the euro area

This paper studies the effects of fiscal policy announcements on household expectations. We document announcements of price-related expansionary fiscal measures in response to the cost-of-living crisis in the four largest euro area economies and exploit the exogenous timing of fiscal actions relative to household survey participation to estimate their causal effects. Following fiscal announcements, households revise their beliefs: inflation perceptions rise, and unemployment perceptions fall.

IFDP Paper: The case for supporting liquidity supply in (some corners of) non-bank intermediation

Sirio AramonteAfter the Global Financial Crisis, the liquidity-supply ecosystem that underpins nonbank intermediation shifted away from traditional dealers. Instead, it started to rely more on intermediaries with fragile funding structures and opportunistic investment strategies. Over the years, stress episodes saw the sudden retrenchment of these intermediaries, which amplified liquidity imbalances and market malfunction.

IFDP Paper: Retail inventories and inflation dynamics: The price margin channel

Neil Mehrotra, Hyunseung Oh, and Julio L. OrtizUsing industry-level panel data and plausibly exogenous variation in supply conditions, we estimate the elasticity of retail price margins with respect to inventories along the retailer's optimal pricing curve. We find that this elasticity is negative and statistically significant, implying that lower finished-good inventories lead to higher price margins.

FEDS Paper: Decomposing Recent Employment Gains Among Disabled Workers

Hsinyu (Samuel) Tseng, Douglas A. WebberWe use the longitudinal component of the Current Population Survey to compare transition rates into and out of disability and employment prior to and after the onset of the pandemic. We find that one-third of the increased employment rate among disabled people is due to the excess incidence of disability seen following the pandemic, while the other two-thirds is attributable to higher participation among people whose disabilities were unrelated to the pandemic.

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