Philip R Lane: The monetary policy toolbox and the effective lower bound Welcome address by Mr Philip R Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the ECB Conference on Monetary Policy “bridging science and practice”, Frankfurt am Main, 11 October 2021. * * * It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 2021 edition of the annual ECB Conference on Monetary Policy. As captured in the title of this year’s event, this conference series serves a vital role in bridging the science and practice of monetary policy. In particular, it is essential for the ECB to incorporate in our analytical framework the theoretical and empirical insights generated by the global academic community, and the conference format (albeit in webinar mode again this year) is very effective in providing us with a platform to discuss the latest developments. The breadth of academic research (in terms of both topics and research techniques) that is relevant for monetary policy is quite wide and this is reflected in the composition of the conference programme. The agenda includes research that exploits financial market data to examine the transmission of monetary policy, studies the impact of the pandemic on firms and banks using entity-level datasets, analyses the interactions between monetary policy and financial stability in a full-scale macroeconomic model, and explores the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on the formation of household expectations.
It is not only an attractive book, but is also a very valuable working tool. A special feature of this history of the Swiss currency is that it was not written by a historian, but from the perspective of a monetary theorist. Nevertheless, the author is not only an outstanding monetary theorist and academic teacher, he also has rich practical experience  1  Hans von Keler, *1925, German theologist. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  as an economic policy advisor. The SNB’s Governing Board would like to thank Ernst Baltensperger for having made such a significant contribution to the understanding of the Swiss franc. We would also like to thank the publishing house, NZZ Libro, and all the individuals participating in this project for their careful handling and publishing of this book. It is now my pleasure to give the floor to Hans-Peter Thür. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches