The significance of all these roles depends on the decisions of a large number of economic agents – including governments, central banks, institutional and private investors, corporations, and traders – which the central bank can only influence to a limited extent.
In a country such as Italy, where the pace of growth is already slow and has been below that of the euro area for many years now, a further slowdown in economic activity would be felt more deeply than elsewhere. Fiscal policy has limited room for manoeuvre to compensate for a possible contraction in private demand.