The assessment and especially the quantification of risks is a task which is always incomplete and always in need of further development. Nevertheless, I think that significant improvements have been achieved and the governors, the governing council and the board members have now a much better overview of the financial risks of their banks and the whole Eurosystem than before.
However, even if one is prepared to entertain the possibility that the line of causation runs predominantly from macroeconomic conditions – fundamental macroeconomic stability – to asset price determination, the prospects for the evolution of market prices in the near future are vastly conditional on the nature of the macroeconomic moderation.