The ECB’s price stability mandate has been defined by the Treaty. But the Treaty has not spelled out what price stability precisely means. To make the mandate operational, the Governing Council has provided a quantitative definition in 1998 and a clarification in 2003. The landscape has...

Central banks face new challenges. First, the potential long-term decline in neutral rates of interest in advanced economies could reduce the space for central banks to make policy-rate cuts. Second, the potential flattening of the Phillips curve (ie the weakening of the relationship between...