But since productivity growth in the services sector is often lower in the euro area, it constrains our aggregate productivity more. Yet this picture is not necessarily a cause for pessimism. For a start, it suggests that there is quite some scope for productivity catch-up through adopting digital technologies.
Meanwhile we at the Central Bank will not shirk our responsibility to do what is in our power to deliver on our mandate to protect the new generation establishing households – and the nation at large – from the risk of a repetition of what happened before. We seek to do so with the minimum of adverse side-effects.