At the current juncture, the need for the data granularity is pertinent for all the aspects of the policymaking, including the monetary policymaking, monetary analysis and the research in this area. The recent crisis did not question the need and usefulness of the traditional aggregate economic and financial statistics (GDP and its components, aggregate credit growth, employment, total external and public debt, budget deficit etc.,), but surely revealed that it is not enough. If we want to increase the effectiveness of monetary policy measures, we should accept the more granular and micro data, as a regular analytical underpinning for the monetary policy decisions nowadays. Of course, the idea is not to act selectively with the monetary policy measures. I still believe that monetary policy tackles the aggregates. It is more about having wider understanding of why the aggregates behave in the manner they do, and more importantly, to have better understanding of the heterogeneous behavior of the different economic agents in the economy. The ultimate outcome of this should be a better understanding of how the monetary policy transmission functions, what the main constraints for more effective transmission are and what can be done to overcome the obstacles. Hence, micro and granular data should supplement the aggregate statistics, allowing us for timely detection and better understanding of “financial innovation, regulatory changes or a behavioral reaction to a changing economic environment”. Also, granular data imply higher flexibility for statisticians in responding to urgent and ad-hoc requests of the policy makers.
This new puzzling reality has triggered more profound discussion on the monetary policy frameworks with the academia and policy making community. Are the main traditional monetary policy principles -price stability as a main objective, some form of flexible IT as a most adequate strategy, policy rate as a main instrument- still valid? As crisis clearly demonstrated that price stability is not a guarantee for financial stability and that financial instability can have long lasting effects on output and inflation, the discussions focus on the need to take into account financial stability in the monetary policy frameworks. Thus, the question: Is the so called “flexible IT” enough flexible to deal with the current and future challenges or maybe as some observers have suggested, a thought should be given to the other alternative strategies such as targeting price level or nominal GDP. The discussions even touch upon the question of adding explicit financial stability objective. For example, as Borio (2016) claims ”if mandates (of the central banks) are seen as overly constraining the room for maneuver, revisiting them should not be taboo. After all, mandates are a means to an end.” Concerning the instruments, the current debates focus on whether the unconventional tool kit is temporary, as initially considered, or will become conventional tool supplementing the traditional monetary instrument. This is, in particular, in the context of the ultra-low interest rate environment and still anemic recovery.