Lorenzo Bini Smaghi: Lessons for monetary policy from the recent crisis Speech by Mr Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the roundtable “L’euro e la crisi internazionale”, Milan, 19 January 2011. *  *  *  Introduction The financial crisis has been a very challenging period for policy-makers worldwide, not least for monetary authorities.
Central banks have lowered interest rates to levels close to zero and implemented a broad range of unprecedented non-standard policy measures. The recent experience offers, I think, five lessons from which monetary policy-makers can learn. Let me list them upfront, before turning to each of them – in that order – in my remarks today. 1.