This is because the main reasons underlying the outbreak of the current financial crisis are deficiencies and mistakes in the establishment of economic policies along with the fulfillment of regulatory and supervisory activities. Nevertheless, we all know that the reconstruction of economic balances under normal conditions relies on the proper execution of these functions. Another factor leading to uncertainty is the enforcement of global financial and monetary measures of a size, speed and coordination that has never been witnessed before. This raises ambiguity pertaining to the responses to these measures from financial markets and economies in the upcoming period. In the current conjuncture there is a consensus that the recovery in global economic activity will not be anytime soon and what worries the global community is what will follow the crisis. The question about mechanisms to avert any future global financial crisis similar to the current one will completely occupy the agenda of academics and policy-makers in the near future. Moreover, the extent and pace of the reversion for financial measures and nontraditional monetary policy exercises against the financial crisis on the back of stabilization in economies will top agenda very soon. The global financial crisis has led to a significant slowdown in economic activity in Turkey as in other developing countries. A remarkable tightening in lending conditions and a surge in interest on loans were experienced during the worst period of the financial crisis.
Consequently, other tools than the policy rate will continue to be needed to ensure that other interest  10 See CGFS (2019) for a summary and discussion, and Hansson et al. (2018) for implications for the monetary policy analysis. 11 As I have said, after the financial crisis, new models were developed that included a role for asset purchases; see, for example, Gertler and Karadi (2015). 8 [13]  rates and lending develop in such a way that capacity utilisation in the economy is maintained and the inflation target is met. How far can the policy rate be cut? At present, the Riksbank’s policy rate is at zero per cent and, according to the Monetary Policy Report from November 2020, the Executive Board’s best assessment is that it will remain there over the entire forecast period, which is to say until the end of 2023. At the same time, we have emphasised that the policy rate may be cut to below zero, should the circumstances justify it. We have done this before – cut the policy rate to slightly below zero, that is. Between February 2015 and December 2019, the policy rate lay in the range of -0.1 to -0.5 per cent. Our experiences of this period were mainly positive, as the low policy rate contributed to inflation again rising towards the target without any major negative side effects. Cutting the repo rate ‘deeply’ is another thing, however.