From the vantage point of most central banks, the world could hardly, in some respects, look more unusual. Policy rates in the major advanced jurisdictions have been near zero for six years now. In fact, official deposit rates in the euro area and some other European countries are now negative. As it turns out, the “zero lower bound” wasn’t actually at zero.
Central bank balance sheets in the three large currency areas have expanded by a total of about $ trillion since 2007, and the ECB and Bank of Japan will add, between them, about another $ trillion to that over the next couple of years.