One is the review of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy that we concluded in July. The review was prompted by historically low interest rates driven by the trend decline in the equilibrium real interest rate, and the limits on lower interest rates as a result of the implications of the effective lower bound for monetary policy.
In the process of deciding a title for this address, I recalled that three years ago I was talking in public addresses about the times being interesting, perhaps a little too interesting. That still seems to be the case, hence the title. As you know, yesterday the Reserve Bank Board met here in Perth.