And this response went beyond interest rate policy. Let me cite a few numbers for the euro area, which serve to illustrate what is meant by the term balance sheet policy. In summer 2007, before the crisis, the total assets of the consolidated balance sheet of the Eurosystem stood at EUR 0.9 trillion. This was around 10% of euro area GDP.
At the height of the crisis, in January 2009, these total assets exceeded EUR 1.8 trillion. Currently, they stand at around EUR 1.5 trillion. Similar balance sheet movements can be observed also for other central banks. However, Borio and Disyatat point out that there are interesting differences between the particular balance sheet policies chosen.