The decision taken by the Governing Council of the ECB in October 1998 to spell out the contours of its monetary policy strategy attests to the extent to which the notion of a monetary policy strategy has become operationally meaningful.
To secure stability, a central bank has to act forcefully and pre-emptively to nascent signs of inflation or deflation.4 *** To be sure, a world in which central banks’ intended policy measures and market views are perfectly aligned is likely to appear only in textbook analysis.