5  Monetary policy and the natural rate of interest in practice  In light of the discussed theoretical considerations, the natural rate of interest could in principle play an important role in the conduct of monetary policy.
And at least conceptually its measurement would be straightforward: identify its real driving forces, get to know in what way the NRI is affected by each of them, and finally measure their values. Obviously, all of these three steps imply considerable obstacles. Step one requires an exhaustive enumeration of all those real factors that are potentially important.