Monetary policy

The ECB balance of risks for price stability and growth provides useful information on the Governing Council’s assessment of risks to the euro area outlook. Abstracting from unconventional monetary policy measures, an analysis since mid-2003 shows that: i) upside risks to inflation are associated with rate hikes, ii) downward risks to growth with rate cuts, and iii) in the case of conflicting signals, inflation takes priority.

A credible central bank can more easily anchor agents’ expectations, and therefore long-term interest rates. Thus credibility would reduce the need to make an intensive use of key rates. There is indeed an inverse relationship between credibility and interest rate volatility.

Excess liquidity in the euro area has risen by less than the liquidity created by unconventional monetary policy measures. This is because much liquidity has been absorbed by non-monetary deposit accounts held by national central banks. As monetary policy normalises, liquidity will become scarcer. At what point this scarcity will cause interbank rates to drift above the deposit facility rate will depend on whether this “autonomous” demand remains high.

At its meeting of 13 December 2018, the ECB Governing Council confirmed that it would stop the net asset purchase programme begun in late 2014 at the end of this year. Quantitative easing nonetheless remains in place: it depends primarily on the stock of assets held by the Eurosystem rather than on the flow of purchases. This stock will remain unchanged for as long as the Eurosystem continues to reinvest the proceeds from maturing securities.