Existing databases, models, analytical tools and forecasting and projection apparatuses have been overhauled and enhanced, and new ones have been added. Through our Department of Research we have invested in all areas of micro- and macroresearch that are directly and indirectly beneficial to our economic and monetary analysis. We have launched research initiatives across European countries to understand how economies work and what drives innovation, productivity, competitiveness, growth, employment, equality and so on. Let me mention just a few examples of such initiatives undertaken by the ECB and the Eurosystem: •  There is the Competitiveness Research Network, known as CompNet. Its objective is to identify what drives the dynamics of competitiveness and productivity across EU countries and heterogeneous firms, and relate the findings to policy  7  See van Beers, Bijlsma and Zwart, “Cross-country insurance mechanisms in currency unions: An empirical assessment”, Bruegel Working Paper, 2014/04. 8  See Hepp and von Hagen, “Interstate risk sharing in Germany: 1970–2006”, Oxford Economic Papers 65, 2013. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  outcomes. CompNet has already assembled millions of data points and observations in order to capture “non-price competitiveness”. This initiative is already showing that we need to augment our analyses with a global value chains dimension, as the internationalisation of production matters. Had we had anything similar prior to the crisis we would have been in a better position to anticipate the effects of the propagation of the crisis along the supply chain. •  There is the Household Finance & Consumption Network (HFCN).

Its objective is to conduct surveys to collect household-level data on households’ income, expenditure, assets, debt and collateral. The data can then be aggregated to gauge a measure of distress of individual households and to calculate credit risk indicators, such as the probability of default, exposure at default or loss given default. Such indicators can then be subject to stress tests for which a scenario can combine an unemployment shock with an interest rate shock and a house price shock. Had such data been available prior to the crisis, it would have facilitated the identification of household borrowing and spending exuberance in several countries at an earlier stage. •  There is the Macro-prudential Research Network (MaRs). Its objective is to develop core conceptual frameworks, models and tools that provide research support in order to improve macro-prudential supervision in the European Union. The work performed under MaRs can yield more complex economic, financial and monetary indicators that can more adequately address the complexities inherent in the euro area. In the context of MaRs and also resulting from work in our own Department of Macroprudential Policy and Financial Stability, we have developed analytical tools that include, for instance, early warning systems that can go to the level of individual banks, decision tree risk models, structural VARs and Global VARs , contagion network models and top-down stress test models for banks. One of the least acknowledged outcomes of the crisis is the wealth of tools and models now available for conducting in-depth economic, monetary and financial stability analyses.