In our discussion to come, I believe we could study two types of aggregates:  Page 7 sur 10   Financial aggregates, from the perspective of financial stability, and potentially looking more closely at the assets of financial institutions including non-banks (such as their provision of credit in the broadest sense) rather than at their liabilities only (including money, as in the past).  Other economic aggregates, starting with nominal GDP, which has the virtue of combining real growth and prices – two variables that statisticians sometimes have difficulties separating in our measures. But also employment and income distribution, which respond to the demands of the Treaties as well as to the expectations of the public. Allow me some remarks on the substance of these “secondary” objectives. To achieve financial stability, in an ideal world, we would have a box of macroprudential tools that could maintain financial stability whatever the monetary policy stance. However, in practice our set of macroprudential tools is comparatively limited. We need a monetary policy strategy that reflects this reality. We should go beyond the old debate of “separation principle” versus “ leaning against the wind”. I advocate a median way, which we could call “coordinated” or “integrated”.viii We have now a range of unconventional monetary instruments and our objective should be to pick the right combination that delivers the necessary accommodative monetary stance while minimizing of adverse side-effects on financial stability.
Financial waters, already extremely chilly, then froze solid. Banks found it almost impossible to finance themselves because no-one knew which banks were safe and which weren’t. From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn’t solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders’ capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made. From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £ billion or more. It wasn’t a popular message. But nine months later, market pressure forced banks to raise new capital or accept 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  it from the state. UK tax payers ended up owning large portions of two of our four biggest banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB, but almost all banks would have failed had not taxpayer support been extended. That bold action in October 2008 could have happened sooner. But the most important thing is that it was done. And the policy of recapitalising the banks was soon copied by other countries. Bailing out the banks came too late though to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy.