It has established itself as a field of research of its own right since the mid-1990s, when financial stability issues were boosted by  2  BIS Review 82/2008  financial globalisation and an acceleration in financial innovation. This is reflected in the wide dissemination of financial stability reports, which central banks now produce in more than 50 countries worldwide.
I would therefore like to give you a brief overview of the kind of challenges central banks face when embarking on financial stability analysis. It starts with the fact that financial stability is not easily measured. This is hardly surprising as, in contrast to monetary policy analysis, there is no single indicator (such as inflation) to observe.