Sooner or later, the ECB must accept that monetary financing in support of deficit spending is a necessity not just for mitigating the coronavirus crisis, but also for averting a downward deflationary cycle that could pull the eurozone apart.

Inflation is on the rise again in the industrialised world. This has led to fears of a sustained surge in inflation. This article argues that while such fears may make sense in the US, they do not in the eurozone, where the monetary-fiscal policy mix has been much less expansionary than in the...