The first is the baby boom that followed the Second World War. The second is the drop in fertility rates thereafter. Combined, these two changes led to a “bulge” in the age distribution of the population (Graph 1).
In many euro area countries, however, the national macroprudential authority is the central bank or a council of domestic authorities. In November last year, the ECB took over the responsibility of supervising banks in the euro area. It is less well-known that at the same time the ECB became the ultimate macroprudential decision-maker in the Banking Union.