From Antigrowth Bias to Quantitative Easing : The ECB's Belated Conversion?

This paper investigates the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policies. It identifies an antigrowth bias in the bank's monetary policy approach: the ECB is quick to hike, but slow to ease. Similarly, while other players and institutional deficiencies share responsibility for the euro's failure, the bank has generally done “too little, too late” with regard to managing the euro crisis, preventing protracted stagnation, and containing deflation threats. The bank remains attached to the euro area's official competitive wage-repression strategy, which is in conflict with the ECB's price stability mandate and undermines its more recent, unconventional monetary policy initiatives designed to restore price stability. The ECB needs a “Euro Treasury” partner to overcome the euro regime's most serious flaw: the divorce between central bank and treasury institutions