Globalisation and technological evolution are drivers of change, but the dramatic consequence of slow adjustment of national economies is further exacerbated by the dramatic and structural demographic change in Europe. Low fertility rates, the continuous extension of life expectancy and the retirement of the baby boom generations will in the coming decades exert professional, economic, budgetary and social consequences.
This has indeed induced central banks,  BIS Review 74/2007  1  including those that have adopted inflation targeting, to gradually shift their attention to achieving price stability in the longer run through flexibly responding to economic developments as well as prices.