During 2009, labor productivity in the United States rose sharply to the level of 2000 to 2005, the years of the “productivity growth explosion,” as a result of drastic corporate restructuring by means of personnel cuts in response to the economic crisis following the Lehman shock.
To this I would respond that it is important to emphasise again that the ECB’s forward guidance is linked explicitly to the main policy rate(s) in the euro area. And however fragmented interbank markets are, guiding expectation about the future path of the main refinancing rate is relevant for the refinancing conditions of banks across the euro area.