Isabel Schnabel: Societal responsibility and central bank independence

Keynote speech by Ms Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the "VIII. New Paradigm Workshop", organised by the Forum New Economy, Frankfurt am Main, 27 May 2021.

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

Central banking in times of shifting societal concerns

The best contribution that central banks can make to economic prosperity is to maintain stable prices: this was the broad consensus among academic scholars and policymakers emerging in the late 1970s when inflation in many advanced economies had surged to double-digit levels, thereby eroding purchasing power and hitting the poorest in society the hardest.