For the euro to be sustainable, we need a stronger framework, particularly in relation to structural reform, where we need a strong and shared decision-making mechanism. Fiscal union is part of this debate, but it can only be implemented when there is a sufficient degree of homogeneity between countries and when a mechanism for political responsibility becomes available. Fiscal union without democratic control is not possible and is incompatible with democracy. This subject will come up, but not until further down the line. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Further, in our initial investigations we had established evidence that many respondents would prefer to give a range rather than a point estimate and that most households were able to answer questions about their uncertainty over future inflation. We had also found our measure of individual forecast uncertainty to be positively correlated with the width of any range of responses given to the standard point forecast questions. Thus, we added questions eliciting from our panel their subjective uncertainty about future inflation. I will show you an example of such a question in a minute. As emphasized above, anchoring forward inflation expectations is crucial for monetary policy. In the Michigan survey, information on forward inflation expectations is generated by a question asking about “the change in prices in general over the next 5 to 10 years.” Our initial exploratory work confirmed that many households were confused by this wording but that there was overwhelming evidence that long-term average expectations were being reported. Considering the rather elaborate structure of the Michigan questions shown in Chart 5, it also appears that small changes in the various challenges could lower the median response by a significant margin. Further, asking about the rate of inflation directly produced answers more consistent with the concept of forward inflation expectations of interest to central banks. Rather than replicating the Michigan long-term inflation expectation question replacing “prices in general” with the “rate of inflation” we decided to work with a medium-term explicit horizon and use only a probabilistic version of the question.