At her first press conference as ECB president, Christine Lagarde characterised herself as neither a monetary policy hawk nor a dove but a wise owl. This wisdom will clearly be put to test in 2020. With the economy hovering between stagnation and a soft rebound, core inflation marginally creeping up and the adverse effects of the ECB’s unconventional measures getting more attention calls for a recalibration of monetary policy could get louder towards the end of the year. The strategy review could also lead to slight changes in the ECB’s definition of price stability towards “around 2%”, instead of “below … (full story)
