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ZUSAMMENFASSUNG UND ERGEBNISSE (1) Die Schaffung des Europäischen Ausschusses für Systemrisiken stößt nicht auf durchgreifende rechtliche Bedenken. (2) Es ist nicht sicher, dass die Errichtung der neuen Europäischen Aufsichtbehörden ohne entsprechende Änderung des Primärrechts zulässig ist. (3) Es kommt entscheidend darauf an, welche rechtsverbindlichen Einzelweisungsbefugnisse tatsächlich den Behörden verliehen werden. (4) Die nach dem Kompromiss vom 2. Dezember 2009 noch verbliebenen Einzelweisungsbefugnisse der Behörden gegenüber Privaten und gegenüber nationalen Aufsichtsbehörden sind rechtlich kaum abgesichert. (5) Wenn die hoheitlichen Befugnisse weitgehend oder vollständig beseitigt werden, bestehen Bedenken im Hinblick auf die Geeignetheit und Erforderlichkeit der Einrichtungen. (6) Die weitreichenden Unabhängigkeitsgarantien sind nicht mit den Anforderungen demokratischer Aufsicht und Kontrolle zu vereinbaren. (7) Für die Einräumung von Unabhängigkeit ist nach deutschem Verfassungsrecht eine ausdrückliche Regelung in der Verfassung, wie in Art. 88 Satz 2 GG, erforderlich. (8) Die transnationale Kooperation von Verwaltungsbehörden bedarf zumindest dann einer gesetzlichen Ermächtigung, wenn faktisch verbindliche Entscheidungen getroffen werden.
The Treaty of Maastricht imposed the strict obligation on the European Union (EU) to establish an economic and monetary union, now Article 3(4) TEU. This economic and monetary union is, however, not designed as a separate entity but as an integral part of the EU. The single currency was to become the currency of the EU and to be the legal tender in all Member States unless an exemption was explicitly granted in the primary law of the EU, as in the case of the UK and Denmark. The newly admitted Member States are obliged to introduce the euro as their currency as soon as they fulfil the admission criteria. Technically, this has been achieved by transferring the exclusive competence for the monetary policy of the Member States whose currency is the euro on the EU, Article 3(1)(c) TFEU and by bestowing the euro with the quality of legal tender, the only legal tender in the EU, Article 128(1) sentence 3 TFEU.
In its meeting on 6 September 2012, the Governing Council of the ECB took decisions on a number of technical features regarding the Eurosystem’s outright transactions in secondary sovereign bond markets (OMT). This decision was challenged in the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) by a number of constitutional complaints and other petitions. In its seminal judgment of 14 January 2014, the German court expressed serious doubts on the compatibility of the ECB’s decision with the European Union law.
It admitted the complaints and petitions even though actual purchases had not been executed and the control of acts of an organ of the EU in principle is not the task of the GFCC. As justification for this procedure the court resorted to its judicature on a reserved “ultra vires” control and the defense of the “constitutional identiy” of Germany. In the end, however, the court referred the case pursuant to Article 267 TFEU to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for preliminary rulings on several questions of EU law. In substance, the German court assessed OMT as an act of economic policy which is not covered by the competences of the ECB. Furthermore, it judged OMT as a – by EU primary law – prohibited monetary financing of sovereign debt. The defense of the ECB (disruption of monetary policy transmission mechanism) was dismissed without closer scrutiny as being “irrelevant”. Finally the court opened, however, a way for a compromise by an interpretation of OMT in conformity with EU law under preconditions, specified in detail.
Procedure and findings of this judgment were harshly criticized by many economists but also by the majority of legal scholars. This criticism is largely convincing in view of the admissibility of the complaints. Even if the “ultra vires” control is in conformity with prior decisions of court it is in this judgment expanded further without compelling reasons. It is also questionable whether the standing of the complaining parties had to be accepted and whether the referral to the ECJ was indicated. The arguments of the court are, however, conclusive in respect of the transgression of competences by the ECB and – to somewhat lesser extent – in respect of the monetary debt financing. The dismissal of the defense as “irrelevant” is absolutey persuasive.
Inhalt:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Helmut Siekmann: Stellungnahme für den Haushalts- und Finanzausschuss des Landtags Nordrhein-Westfalen zum Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Offenlegung der Bezüge von Sparkassenführungskräften im Internet (Drucksache 16/4165) vom 10.02.2014
Gesetzentwurf der Fraktion der Piraten Gesetz zur Offenlegung der Bezüge von Sparkassenführungskräften im Internet vom 08.10.2013
Ein Freibrief für die Notenbank bedeutet, genau genommen, die Bankrotterklärung des demokratischen Verfassungsstaates vor technokratischen Beliebigkeiten, schreibt Helmut Siekmann in diesem Namensbeitrag. Er betont, dass die Europäische Union eine unverzichtbare Einrichtung ist und ein echter Bundesstaat sein sollte. Sie sei aber im Wesentlichen (nur) ein Rechtskonstrukt, weshalb es umso wichtiger sei, dass die rechtlichen Regeln, auf denen sie beruht, genauestens beachtet werden.
(1) Unter „öffentlichen Banken“ sind Kreditinstitute in unmittelbarer oder mittelbarer Trägerschaft einer Gebietskörperschaft zu verstehen.
(2) Eine Bestandsaufnahme ergibt, dass ein nennenswerter Teil der „öffentlichen Banken“ materiell privatisiert oder stark umgeformt worden ist.
(3) Die Sicherung der Kunden durch Anstaltslast und Gewährträgerhaftung ist weitgehend beseitigt worden, ohne dass dies den Betroffenen hinreichend deutlich gemacht worden ist.
(4) Die bestehenden „öffentlichen Banken“ sind deutlich vielgestaltiger organisiert als noch vor wenigen Jahren.
(5) Auch „öffentliche Banken“ unterliegen regelmäßig der „allgemeinen“ Aufsicht und Kontrolle, wie sie für privatwirtschaftliche Institute in ihrer jeweiligen Rechtsform gelten.
(6) Darüber hinaus ist aus verfassungsrechtlichen Gründen eine besondere Leitung, Aufsicht und Kontrolle der „öffentliche Banken“ durch ihr Trägergemeinwesen erforderlich; nicht zuletzt um die Einhaltung ihres besonderen öffentlichen Auftrags kontrollieren zu können.
(7) Die Prüfung durch Wirtschafsprüfer kann diese Aufgaben nicht erfüllen.
(8) Sie ist an erster Stelle Aufgabe der Exekutive des Trägergemeinwesens.
(9) Eine bloße Rechtsaufsicht ist verfassungsrechtlich problematisch, jedenfalls dann wenn eine Einstandspflicht des Trägergemeinwesens besteht.
(10) Die Mitwirkung in Aufsichtsgremien der „öffentliche Banken“ ist keine hinreichende Aufsicht in diesem Sinne.
(11) Darüber hinaus sind die parlamentarische Kontrolle und die Kontrolle durch die Rechnungshöfe ganz wesentlich.
(12) Die Kontrolle durch Sicherungseinrichtungen kann wirksam und sinnvoll sein.
(13) Öffentlich-rechtliche und privatrechtliche Mischformen dürfen nicht zu einer Ausdünnung von Aufsicht und Kontrolle führen.
(14) Der Einsatz des Instituts der Beleihung ist nur dann rechtlich akzeptabel, wenn ein durchgehender Aufsichts- und Leitungsstrang auch gegenüber dem Beliehenen gesichert ist.
(15) Überlegungen zur Neuordnung der „öffentlichen Banken“ müssen zuerst die Frage beantworten, ob und welche Bankdienstleistungen der Staat unmittelbar oder mittelbar anbieten sollte.
(16) Eine Grundversorgung der Bevölkerung mit einfachen Bankdienstleistungen, die sicher, einfach, kostengünstig und leicht erreichbar sind, ist eine staatliche Aufgabe. Hier liegt in weitem Umfang Marktversagen vor.
(17) Ob ein reformiertes Einlagensicherungssystem die notwendige Sicherheit bieten kann, ist zweifelhaft, solange keine Staatsgarantie für die Sicherungseinrichtungen besteht.
(18) Es ist an eine Reaktivierung von Anstaltslast und Gewährträgerhaftung für einfache Institute zur Grundversorgung der Bevölkerung zu denken.
(19) Leitung und Kontrolle des Managements „öffentlicher Banken“ müssen wesentlich strenger werden, um jegliche Risiken für die öffentlichen Haushalte auszuschließen. Gehaltsmäßig muss ihre Leitung so uninteressant sein, dass sie weder für Politiker noch für „Finanzingenieure“ attraktiv ist.
This note reviews the legal issues and concerns that are likely to play an important role in the ongoing deliberations of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany concerning the legality of ECB government bond purchases such as those conducted in the context of its earlier Securities Market Programme or potential future Outright Monetary Transactions.
This paper summarizes key elements of the German Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on the European Central Bank’s Public Sector Asset Purchase Programme. It briefly explains how it is possible for the German Court to disagree with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Finally, it makes suggestions concerning a practical way forward for the Governing Council of the ECB in light of these developments.
This paper empirically investigates how organizational hierarchy affects the allocation of credit within a bank. Using an exogenous variation in organizational design, induced by a reorganization plan implemented in roughly 2,000 bank branches in India during 1999-2006, and employing a difference-in-differences research strategy, we find that increased hierarchization of a branch decreases its ability to produce "soft" information on loans, leads to increased standardization of loans and rationing of "soft information" loans. Furthermore, this loss of information brings about a reduction in performance on loans: delinquency rates and returns on similar loans are worse in more hierarchical branches. We also document how hierarchical structures perform better in environments that are characterized by a high degree of corruption, thus highlighting the benefits of hierarchical decision making in restraining rent seeking activities. Finally, we document a channel - managerial interference - through which hierarchy affects loan outcomes.
In the euro area, monetary policy is conducted by a single central bank for 20 member countries. However, countries are heterogeneous in their economic development, including their inflation rates. This paper combines a New Keynesian model and a neural network to assess whether the European Central Bank (ECB) conducted monetary policy between 2002 and 2022 according to the weighted average of the inflation rates within the European Monetary Union (EMU) or reacted more strongly to the inflation rate developments of certain EMU countries.
The New Keynesian model first generates data which is used to train and evaluate several machine learning algorithms. They authors find that a neural network performs best out-of-sample. They use this algorithm to generally classify historical EMU data, and to determine the exact weight on the inflation rate of EMU members in each quarter of the past two decades. Their findings suggest disproportional emphasis of the ECB on the inflation rates of EMU members that exhibited high inflation rate volatility for the vast majority of the time frame considered (80%), with a median inflation weight of 67% on these countries. They show that these results stem from a tendency of the ECB to react more strongly to countries whose inflation rates exhibit greater deviations from their long-term trend.
The recent sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone was characterized by a monetary policy, which has been constrained by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates, and several countries, which faced high risk spreads on their sovereign bonds. How is the government spending multiplier affected by such an economic environment?While prominent results in the academic literature point to high government spending multipliers at the ZLB, higher public indebtedness is often associated with small government spending multipliers. I develop a DSGE model with leverage constrained banks that captures both features of this economic environment, the ZLB and fiscal stress. In this model, I analyze the effects of government spending shocks. I find that not only are multipliers large at the ZLB, the presence of fiscal stress can even increase their size. For longer durations of the ZLB,multipliers in this model can be considerably larger than one.
JEL Classification: E32, E 44, E62
I have assessed changes in the monetary policy stance in the euro area since its inception by applying a Bayesian time-varying parameter framework in conjunction with the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm. I find that the estimated policy response has varied considerably over time. Most of the results suggest that the response weakened after the onset of the financial crisis and while quantitative measures were still in place, although there are also indications that the weakening of the response to the expected inflation gap may have been less pronounced. I also find that the policy response has become more forceful over the course of the recent sharp rise in inflation. Furthermore, it is essential to model the stochastic volatility relating to deviations from the policy rule as it materially influences the results.
The Federal Reserve has been publishing federal funds rate prescriptions from Taylor rules in its Monetary Policy Report since 2017. The signals from the rules aligned with Fed action on many occasions, but in some cases the Fed opted for a different route. This paper reviews the implications of the rules during the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent inflation surge and derives projections for the future.
In 2020, the Fed took the negative prescribed rates, which were far below the effective lower bound on the nominal interest rate, as support for extensive and long-lasting quantitative easing. Yet, the calculations overstate the extent of the constraint, because they neglect the supply side effects of the pandemic.
The paper proposes a simple model-based adjustment to the resource gap used by the rules for 2020. In 2021, the rules clearly signaled the need for tightening because of the rise of inflation, yet the Fed waited until spring 2022 to raise the federal funds rate. With the decline of inflation over the course of 2023, the rules’ prescriptions have also come down. They fall below the actual federal funds rate target range in 2024. Several caveats concerning the projections of the interest rate prescriptions are discussed.
In this paper we investigate the comparative properties of empirically-estimated monetary models of the U.S. economy using a new database of models designed for such investigations. We focus on three representative models due to Christiano, Eichenbaum, Evans (2005), Smets and Wouters (2007) and Taylor (1993a). Although these models differ in terms of structure, estimation method, sample period, and data vintage, we find surprisingly similar economic impacts of unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate. However, optimized monetary policy rules differ across models and lack robustness. Model averaging offers an effective strategy for improving the robustness of policy rules.
Recently there has been an explosion of research on whether the equilibrium real interest rate has declined, an issue with significant implications for monetary policy. A common finding is that the rate has declined. In this paper we provide evidence that contradicts this finding. We show that the perceived decline may well be due to shifts in regulatory policy and monetary policy that have been omitted from the research. In developing the monetary policy implications, it is promising that much of the research approaches the policy problem through the framework of monetary policy rules, as uncertainty in the equilibrium real rate is not a reason to abandon rules in favor of discretion. But the results are still inconclusive and too uncertain to incorporate into policy rules in the ways that have been suggested.
During the 1970s, industrial countries, including the US and continental Europa, experienced a combination of slow productivity growth and high unemplyoment. Subsequent research has shown that the standard model of unemployment actually gives counterfactual predictions. Motivated by the observation that the 1970s were also characterized by high and rising inflation, Tesfaselassie and Wolters examine the effect of growth on unemployment in the presence of nominal price rigidity.
The authors demonstrate that the effect of growth on unemployment may be positive or negative. Faster growth leads to lower unemployment if the rate of inflation is high enough. There is a threshold level of inflation below which faster growth leads to higher unemployment and above which faster growth leads to lower unemployment. The threshold level in turn depends on labor market characteristics, such as hiring efficiency, the job destruction rate, workers' relative bargaining power and the opportunity cost of work.