سیاست های پولی بانک مرکزی اروپا: گزینه ها و چالش ها

This paper analyses the European central bank (ECB) monetary policy over the period 1999–2006, with a special emphasis on the recent years. The first part of the paper underlines the declared goals, decision variables and procedures, as can be inferred from various speeches of Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the ECB. These statements are then weighted against the data, mainly through estimates of possible ECB interest rate rules. While in many respects the bank has performed reasonably well, several issues may be raised, mainly because the inflation objective has not been reached during the last period and monetary developments are not in line with economic stability. Policy recommendations follow, built on a renewed monetarist tradition: the reduction of the weight of real activity in the conduct of monetary policy, while further emphasising money via a money growth intermediate target.

A fruitful debate on monetary policy processes, whatever the central bank under scrutiny, needs to unveil the variables that affect the banker's behaviour, and analyse how these variables affect such behaviour. This is a crucial endeavour to get an understanding of any consistent (or inconsistent) decision-making process, to evaluate this process and to make policy recommendations. Economists often resort to linear models of the interest rate determination in order to describe the essentials of a central bank's monetary policy. Yet, in day-to-day decision-making, central bankers follow a rather pragmatic approach in formulating their policy decisions. They take into consideration a variety of variables and even “hunches” that are not necessarily captured by simple rules. Hence, the necessity to carry out not only a quantitative but also a qualitative analysis of the central banker behaviour.1 By considering both the quantitative and the qualitative analyses one gets a better view of a central bank's monetary policy framework and is able to use these analyses as a basis for policy proposals. One objective of this paper is an attempt at unveiling the ECB decision-making process, building upon both a qualitative analysis and an empirical analysis of its main monetary policy decisions. From these analyses we infer an evaluation of the ECB monetary policy and propose policy reforms which, we believe, would enhance and sustain over time the bank's credibility as well as improve its role and achievements as a “money watcher”. The qualitative analysis is conducted by studying the public statements and positions (press conferences and speeches) given by the President of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, speaking for the governing council of the central bank. The quantitative analysis seeks to extract from the data the basic responses of the ECB to main macroeconomic variables; this extraction process enables us to compare the empirical results with principles deducted from the qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis is conducted essentially via estimates of interest rate rules, be they in the existing literature or our own new estimates. Following this introduction, Section 2 presents a qualitative analysis of the European central banker's behaviour, as inferred from his policy statements. Section 3 pursues this analysis through a discussion of the art of central banking and the credibility building essential to a new central bank. The empirical analysis is developed in Sections 4 and 5; first by evaluating the existing literature, second by a set of new estimates including the most recent period. Section 6 is devoted to further evaluation and discussion of the ECB policy process and to propositions for institutional and policy reforms. Finally, Section 7 concludes by highlighting our key points.

This paper presents an analysis of the ECB monetary policy both from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. From these analyses we infer some policy recommendations. The qualitative approach builds on information extracted from various speeches of the President of the ECB. It unveils the different variables that seem to be considered when determining monetary policy in the euro area, and the qualitative role that they seem to play in this determination. This part presents the global “philosophy” of monetary policy making of the bank, stresses its need and desire to establish and reinforce its credibility as an overriding means to control inflation, anchor inflationary expectations and sustain growth in the euro area. In spite of what appears to be a strong reaction to inflationary changes, in the last six years the inflation rate has almost always been above the official objective. Even if these deviations have not been large, such inconsistency over time could erode the credibility of the bank. To be consistent, the central banker should conduct a policy that would bring the inflation rate in line with the objective.16 On that respect, he should bring the “monetary pillar” more to the forefront of his policy, and control more efficiently over time the growth of the monetary aggregates. A way of implementing this policy change would be to establish reasonable upper and lower limits for money growth, and for the central bank to commit itself to have these limits respected. The money stock would then be an intermediate target while inflation would remain the final target. The quantitative part analyses published estimates of the ECB possible interest rate rules and presents new estimates we made, from both one and simultaneous equation models. All these analyses point out that the bank appears to react significantly to future inflation deviations from the objective, but also directly to changes in real activity. This last finding is not without consequence. For a new bank like the ECB, the main concern should be the building of credibility. However, credibility is hard to achieve if the policymaker might in the short-run trade-off inflation for unemployment or other real activity measure. This focus on real activity may be premature, and may put at risk the euro zone performance in the long-run.