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Journal of Banking & Finance Vol. 31 No. 3 2007

Do central banks react to the stock market? The case of the Bundesbank

Martin T. Bohl1; Pierre L. Siklos2; Thomas Werner3

1 University of Münster · 2 Wilfrid Laurier University · 3 European Central Bank

Abstract

In this paper, we ask whether the Bundesbank, prior to the European Central Bank taking responsibility for monetary policy in 1999, reacted systematically to stock price movements. In contrast to the results for the US, our empirical findings show a generally weak relationship between German stock returns and short-term interest rates at the daily and the monthly frequency. The results are extremely robust to alternative model specifications. The evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis of a systematic reaction of the Bundesbank to German stock prices. However, we do find that, as in the US, the Bundesbank may have reacted to the stock market crash of 1987 by loosening monetary policy.

DOI
10.1016/j.jbankfin.2006.04.003
Volume
31
Issue
3
Pages
719-733
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

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