The huge increase in oil and food prices will itself have a dampening effect on consumers in those countries – as it will in the West. So we may well see the balance of supply and demand shift at some point. UK inflation outlook But the immediate prospect is for rising inflation. As the Governor explained in his open letter to the Chancellor, when the rise in energy prices passes through to consumers, CPI inflation is likely to rise sharply in the second half of the year, to above 4%. There is of course considerable uncertainty around this, and if energy and other import prices rise further, CPI inflation could well go even higher in the short term. That is bound to lead to a downward adjustment to real take-home pay. That cannot be avoided. Indeed, such an adjustment was seen in response to the rise in energy prices in 2004-06. Over that period, nominal wage  4  BIS Review 80/2008  growth was broadly stable, and there was a relatively smooth adjustment to real wages in response to the rise in energy prices. A key risk to the outlook is whether a similar, benign adjustment will occur in response to the latest price rises. With inflation having been above target for much of the past three years, and set to rise further in the near term, there is a risk that households and businesses may start to expect CPI inflation to be persistently above 2%.
The evolution of the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations in response to the crisis featured all these activities. Our risk management framework has evolved accordingly, guided by our stable principles. First, the “gusty winds”: during the early stages of the financial crisis, we increased the amount of liquidity we provided to the banking system without tightening the risk control framework, despite the onset of stress in the system. In this respect, our risk management framework followed a through-the-cycle approach – thereby avoiding further distress to the banking system. It also stood in stark contrast to the more pro-cyclical nature of the commercial banking sector’s risk management approach – and was thus part of the central bank’s duty to lean against such potentially self-reinforcing winds. It was possible to avoid tightening the framework without exposing the Eurosystem to undue risks because the pre-crisis framework had been calibrated in a sufficiently prudent manner. In fact, the framework proved to be robust enough to protect the Eurosystem from losses resulting from counterparties defaulting, such as Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks – although the complexity of the collateral in some of these cases led to lengthy liquidation processes. This experience certainly merited a careful review of the collateral rules for complex securities and financial innovations. More broadly, it justified taking steps towards reducing the reliance on external credit ratings, in line with the G20 agenda.