It can take a lot of effort to understand the many different Medicare choices. Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty ImagesThe 67 million Americans eligible for Medicare make an important decision every October: Should they make changes in their Medicare health insurance plans for the next calendar year?

The change in macroeconomic conditions since the ECB’s strategy review in 2021 towards an environment characterised by above-target inflation, high interest rates, and renewed concerns about elevated government debt has been a vocal reminder of the intricate interdependencies between monetary and fiscal policies. Against this background, our paper reviews the literature on how central banks’ ability to maintain price stability is shaped by their interactions with fiscal policy and the state of the economy.

If you’re offered a free cookie, you might say yes. But if you’re paid to eat a free cookie, would your response be the same?

In our new research, twice as many people were willing to eat a cookie when they weren’t offered payment compared with when they were.

From a purely economic perspective, our findings reflect irrational decision making. Objectively, a cookie plus money is better than just a cookie.

Using a new series of crypto shocks, we document that money market funds’ (MMF) assets under management, and traditional financial market variables more broadly, do not react to crypto shocks, whereas stablecoin market capitalization does. U.S. monetary policy shocks, in contrast, drive developments in both crypto and traditional markets. Crucially, the reaction of MMF assets and stablecoin market capitalization to monetary policy shocks is different: while prime-MMF assets rise after a monetary policy tightening, stablecoin market capitalization declines.