Philip R Lane: Pandemic central banking - the monetary stance, market stabilisation and liquidity

Remarks by Mr Philip R Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability Policy Webinar, 19 May 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

In my recent blog post, I described the range of scenarios that have been developed by ECB staff to support the analysis of the near-term and medium-term macroeconomic dynamics in the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. I also explained the current monetary policy of the ECB and outlined our approach to setting the future course of monetary policy. My remarks today aim to reinforce these points by presenting some additional empirical evidence.

Macroeconomic outlook

Chart 1 shows the three scenarios developed by ECB staff that were published on 1 May. Since then, the Eurosystem staff have continued to track the incoming information (both the economic data and the public health data): the forthcoming June Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections will provide an updated assessment of the economic outlook. Still, the 1 May scenarios provide an excellent framework for understanding the environment facing policymakers.