{"title":"The European Central Bank: the time is ripe for a major revision of its strategy","authors":"P. Bofinger","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2021.02.05","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A revision of the European Central Bank's (ECB) strategy is urgently needed. For the new strategy, it is important to define the inflation target explicitly in symmetrical terms. Environmental policy objectives can in principle be reconciled with the ECB's mandate as long as they do not conflict with the objective of monetary stability. An essential element of any strategy is a heuristic that makes it relatively easy for the public to monitor whether monetary policy decisions are in line with the mandate. Among the possible heuristics, monetary targeting and the Taylor rule have to be ruled out while ‘inflation targeting’ offers a relatively simple navigation system for monetary policy discussions.","PeriodicalId":44368,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies-Intervention","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies-Intervention","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2021.02.05","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A revision of the European Central Bank's (ECB) strategy is urgently needed. For the new strategy, it is important to define the inflation target explicitly in symmetrical terms. Environmental policy objectives can in principle be reconciled with the ECB's mandate as long as they do not conflict with the objective of monetary stability. An essential element of any strategy is a heuristic that makes it relatively easy for the public to monitor whether monetary policy decisions are in line with the mandate. Among the possible heuristics, monetary targeting and the Taylor rule have to be ruled out while ‘inflation targeting’ offers a relatively simple navigation system for monetary policy discussions.
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention (EJEEP) is a peer-reviewed journal which serves as a forum for studies in macroeconomic theory, economic institutions and economic policies. The managing editors aim for productive debates involving one or more variants of heterodox economics, and invite contributions acknowledging the pluralism of research approaches. The submission of both theoretical and empirical work is encouraged. The managing editors contend that a wide variety of institutional and social factors shape economic life and economic processes. Only a careful study and integration of such factors into economics will lead to theoretical progress and to competent economic policy recommendations. This was clearly demonstrated by the inadequacy of orthodox economics, based on neoclassical foundations, to provide suitable explanations and responses to recent financial and economic crises.