Even where national authorities had been created, there was uncertainty over the right way to assess risks, which instruments to use and how to calibrate interventions. Moreover, there was a real risk of inaction bias since the costs of macroprudential policy are visible and are felt immediately, but the benefits accrue over time and are difficult to quantify.5 Given this somewhat tentative start for macroprudential policy in Europe, substantial progress 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  has been made over the past eight years. Macroprudential authorities now exist in all but one Member State. The gaps in our framework and knowledge have slowly been filled through research and experience. The ESRB has played an integral part in this process.6 The framework has also helped to counter the risk of inaction bias. National macroprudential authorities have mandates and legal tools to act. At the European level, the ESRB also holds a mandate to monitor risks and vulnerabilities and has a number of legal instruments at its disposal. It can, for example, issue warnings if it has identified a significant risk to financial stability, as well as recommendations setting out remedial steps to be taken on an act-or-explain basis. National authorities have certainly demonstrated their willingness to use the tools at their disposal. Most EU countries currently have at least one measure in place to address risks in the residential property sector and half have measures to tackle risks in commercial real estate.
The costs to society from the crisis were substantial.1 By 2013, unemployment had risen by 10 million and EU GDP was some 13% below its pre-crisis trend.2 The build-up of excessive leverage in the financial system was a key element leading up to the financial crisis, and policymakers were unable to adequately address systemic risk. While many central banks communicated on financial stability issues prior to the crisis, very few countries had established national macroprudential authorities with a specific mandate and precise instruments for policy action. Some of the tools that we would today call macroprudential instruments were used by central banks in Europe during the post-war period, albeit usually for the purpose of demand management.3 But most were no longer used or were dismantled by financial deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s. And without means of enforcement, warnings published in financial stability reports prior to the crisis often went unheeded. It was only after the crisis that there was widespread recognition of the importance of the macro dimension of financial stability. 4 An internet search on the word “macroprudential” yields 5,000 hits for the eight-year period from 2000 to 2007. By contrast, the past eight years yield 120,000 hits. Despite that recognition, macroprudential policy in Europe was far from operational in 2011. Indeed, when the European rules establishing a common legal basis for macroprudential instruments for banking came into effect in January 2014, ten Member States still had not implemented them in primary national legislation.