Consequently, as technological progress and constant change are key characteristics of modern economies, the whole transmission mechanism may be evolving over time. The constant evaluation of how monetary (and other) impulses transmit into inflation rates remains one of the key tasks of monetary policy.
Before turning to specific questions concerning the transmission process that have arisen especially during the financial crisis, I would like to make some more general remarks on whether and how the transmission process could have changed throughout the past two decades before the crisis. Prominent candidates for driving forces behind such a potential change are globalisation, the creation of EMU and financial development.