Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Petra Greso Author-Name-First: Petra Author-Name-Last: Greso Author-Name: Karin Klieber Author-Name-First: Karin Author-Name-Last: Klieber Author-Email: karin.klieber@oenb.at Author-Workplace-Name: Oesterreichische Nationalbank Title: OeNB Bulletin, August 2024: The role of inflation subcomponents: applying maximally forward-looking core inflation to euro area countries Abstract: For well-informed monetary policy decisions, central banks gather a wide range of data on the state of the economy, including several inflation measures. When pursuing a forward-looking monetary policy, policymakers ideally rely on measures that indicate where inflation is heading in the medium term, e.g. when shocks to the economy will have disappeared. To complement the set of inflation measures commonly used in the decisionmaking process, we construct maximally forward-looking core inflation, as proposed by Goulet Coulombe et al. (2024), for the euro area and its seven largest economies. Since the euro area aggregate summarizes diverse economic conditions and responses to shocks within the region, constructing maximally forward-looking core inflation for individual member states provides additional insights into the heterogeneity and commonalities across countries. Overall, our results confirm our measure’s strong performance in predicting medium-term inflation developments, which holds for all economies in the set. We identify key economic sectors that provide useful signals for future headline inflation and find a broad consistency across the seven largest euro area economies. Classification-JEL: C53, E31, E37, E52 Keywords: underlying inflation, inflation forecasting, inflation subcomponents, euro area Pages: 22 Year: 2024 Issue: Q3/2024-1 File-URL: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:31b5f194-2e0e-4252-955a-ccd9ea4a7078/bulletin-august-2024-role-of-inflation-subcomponents.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 6812 kb Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbbu:y:2024:i:Q3/2024-1:b:1 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Ana Abeliansky Author-Name-First: Ana Author-Name-Last: Abeliansky Author-Email: ana.abeliansky@oenb.at Author-Workplace-Name: Oesterreichische Nationalbank Author-Name: Christian Alexander Belabed Author-Name-First: Christian Alexander Author-Name-Last: Belabed Author-Name: Julian Mayrhuber Author-Name-First: Julian Author-Name-Last: Mayrhuber Author-Email: julian.mayrhuber@oenb.at Author-Workplace-Name: Oesterreichische Nationalbank Title: OeNB Bulletin, July 2024: Enjoy the silence? (De)globalization and cross-border investment – a gravity approach Abstract: Amidst increasing geopolitical tensions and the growing discourse on “deglobalization,” we study how geopolitical (de)alignment correlates with one of the main drivers of globalization – cross-border investment. Extending a gravity model with data on voting behavior at the United Nations General Assembly, we find that an increase of geopolitical dealignment is associated with a decline in both foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio investment (PI). The decline is stronger for FDI. The relevance of geopolitical dealignment to FDI has increased after the financial crisis, suggesting that geopolitical considerations are becoming increasingly important for foreign capital allocation. While an increase in the geopolitical distance between “nonfriendly” country pairs is associated with a significant decline in cross-border investment, our results do not show such a strong relation for “friendly” country pairs, indicating that geopolitical differences between “friendly” countries do not immediately lead to a reduction of bilateral investment. Overall, our findings suggest that continued geopolitical fragmentation is likely to lead to a decline in cross-border investment. Classification-JEL: F02, F21, F36 Keywords: capital flows, cross-border investment, deglobalization, geopolitical fragmentation Year: 2024 Issue: Q2/2024-3 File-URL: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:838edc4d-aade-4131-ada9-457d01d48e09/bulletin-july-2024-(de)globalization-and-cross-border-investment.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 7831 kb Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbbu:y:2024:i:Q2/2024-3:b:1 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Pirmin Fessler Author-Name-First: Pirmin Author-Name-Last: Fessler Author-Email: Pirmin.Fessler@oenb.at Author-Workplace-Name: Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Economic Analysis Division Author-Name: Beat Weber Author-Name-First: Beat Author-Name-Last: Weber Author-Email: beat.weber@oenb.at Author-Workplace-Name: Oesterreichische Nationalbank Title: OeNB Bulletin, June 2024: Crypto assets in Austria: an assessment of their prevalence and the motives of their holders Abstract: In this study, we analyze data from a preliminary survey designed to evaluate the inclusion of questions regarding crypto asset holdings of households in the Austrian segment of the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Our objective is to examine the extent of crypto asset ownership within the Austrian population and to explore the motivations behind these holdings.
Our findings reveal that a consistent, albeit small, proportion of individuals hold relatively modest quantities of crypto assets. Demographically, crypto asset holders tend to be younger than the average and predominantly male. Notably, a significant proportion of crypto asset owners (41%) in Austria initiated their investments in 2019. On average, they hold relatively low amounts of crypto assets, with the median value hovering around EUR 6,000 and the 90th percentile near EUR 6,500. Even when evaluating across various levels of crypto asset holdings, the average proportion of these assets in crypto asset owners’ overall financial portfolios remains below 30% across the full distribution of crypto assets and below 15% for owners whose holdings exceed EUR 5,000. The primary motivations cited for owning crypto assets are their speculative potential for profiting from market fluctuations (36% of stated reasons), owners’ curiosity about new technology (27%) and their desire to diversify portfolios of risky assets (12%). Classification-JEL: E44; G29 Keywords: crypto assets; financial risk; household survey Pages: 20 Year: 2024 Issue: Q2/2024-2 File-URL: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:05d9d080-cc45-4462-aa9b-dd6572247feb/bulletin-june-2024-crypto-assets-in-austria.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 6498 kb Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbbu:y:2024:i:Q2/2024-2:b:1 Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Katharina Allinger Author-Name-First: Katharina Author-Name-Last: Allinger Author-Email: katharina.allinger@oenb.at Author-Name: Elias Farnleitner Author-Name-First: Elias Author-Name-Last: Farnleitner Title: OeNB Bulletin, June 2024: What you don’t know can’t help you: public perception of COVID-19 loan repayment moratoria Abstract: We analyze public perceptions of borrower relief measures, i.e. loan repayment moratoria, implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to better understand potential frictions in the transmission of these policies. Using data from an international survey, we document substantial cross-country differences in respondents’ awareness and use of borrower relief measures, their attribution of the measures to different institutions and their reasons for not using the measures. We relate these findings to differences in the designs of moratoria across countries, concluding that respondents’ awareness and use is positively correlated with how borrower-friendly the measures were. Regarding respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics, we find that awareness is correlated with several characteristics, including ownership of financial assets and liabilities or the level of education and financial literacy. In terms of policy conclusions, we are most concerned by respondents’ low awareness of borrower relief measures in some countries and by potential implications resulting from high shares of borrowers reporting that they did not use the measure due to ineligibility. Classification-JEL: G28, G21, G51 Keywords: loan moratoria, household finance, COVID-19, policy evaluation, Central-, Eastern- and Southeastern Europe Pages: 43 Year: 2024 Issue: Q2/2024-1 File-URL: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:9db9e353-a902-40b2-a698-4c11951ba1aa/bulletin-june-2024-public-perception-covid-19-loan-repayment-moratoria.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 7512 kb Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbbu:y:2024:i:Q2/2024-1:b:1