BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Of central importance in this respect is a smoothly functioning pricing system. This is because, in a market economy, prices play a decisive information and steering function, regardless of whether they are the prices for goods, services or assets.
Walter Eucken adds to this fundamental principle six other principles which together characterise a competitive order: open markets, freedom of contract, constancy (in the sense of consistency or reliability) of economic policy, liability for one’s own actions, private ownership and the primacy of monetary policy, the latter being of particular interest to me as a monetary policy maker.