Public Lecture by Robert Holzmann, Governor of the Austrian National Bank /OeNB/, on the Monetary Policy Normalization the Euro Area - Challenges and Options

Let us assume that the central banks have come to grips with the surprising inflation of recent years. Will they return to their standard policy from before the 2008 global financial crisis and use interest rates as their main instrument in future? Or will they continue to use the non-standard instruments introduced in recent years - negative interest rates, quantitative easing, targeted lending to the banking system and new instruments? The answer to this question depends on our calculations of the equilibrium interest rate - and whether it is already close to or even below zero in a normal economic environment. If the equilibrium interest rate is indeed close to zero, then we are doomed to take more and more non-standard measures in the coming years that will have distorting effects on our economy.

The public lecture will examine all these issues and look for ways to cope with them.

It will be followed by a panel discussion on the future of monetary policy.