The Concrete Euro

Paul Mercier is Adviser to the Board of the Banque Centrale du Luxembourg and Visiting Professor at the University of Szeged, Hungary. Before joining the BCL in September 2012, he was Principal Adviser in the Directorate General Market Operations at the European Central Bank after having served as Deputy Director General for 11 years. He also worked for the National Bank of Belgium (1980 -1985 and 1989 -1994), the European Commission (1985 -1988), and the European Monetary Institute (1994-1998) where he was chairman of the taskforce that delivered the specification of the monetary policy implementation framework adopted by the ECB in 1999. For thirteen years (1982 - 1995), he was a Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Law of the University Saint Louis in Brussels (1982-1995).Francesco Papadia is Director General for Market Operations of the European Central Bank. He previously held a position at the Banca d'Italia and acted as an economic advisor to the EU Commission.

During the opening stages of the financial crisis, the ECB provided the necessary liquidity to euro-system banks more smoothly than other Central Banks. This book describes how that was done. More recently, a second leg to the crisis, in the guise of the sovereign debt crisis in certain peripheral countries of the euro-zone, has blown up. The operational reactions of the ECB to this are also covered, up until mid-2010. This book provides a unique insight into the ECB's monetary operations, both in normal and in crisis conditions. A 'must read' for all those concerned with Central Banking, crisis management and the inner workings of the euro-system.

• Introduction ; 1. Theory of Monetary Policy Implementation ; 2. The Story of the Eurosystem Framework ; 3. The Functioning of the Eurosystem framework since 1999 ; 4. Challenges for the Next Decade of Monetary Policy Implementation