specific monetary policy measures are designed. but undoubtedly the eurosystem ’ s determined response contributed to overcoming the economic fallout of the pandemic. 3 conclusion another achievement, and one that brings us to the subject matter of our conference, has been the establishment of a high - level task force on central bank digital currency. the crisis may have changed the overarching agenda, but the topic of digital payment solutions is as cutting edge as it ever was. 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches indeed, the pandemic has tilted consumer behaviour towards contactless payments. whether this shift will be permanent remains to be seen. also, the private initiatives to offer digital means of payment, like the project launched by the libra initiative, have been further advanced, highlighting the demand for an instantaneous, internet - ready means of payment and the need to keep the payment systems that we central banks own up to speed. this notwithstanding, i am sure that cash will continue to be an important payment medium for the foreseeable future. one particularly interesting example of cash is the greek €1 coin : its national side shows the owl of athena which was depicted on an ancient coin. the little owl associated with the goddess athena became a symbol of wisdom – maybe the “ little bit of wisdom ” that you, christine, were referring to in your first press conference as ecb president. we are now impatient to hear what you have to say. christine, the floor is yours. thank you for your attention. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

. the slow recovery provides more evidence that severe financial crises have long - lived effects, as reinhart and rogoff, and others, have documented. 14 the gradual pace of the recovery has likely reflected both demand and supply factors. with respect to aggregate demand, the economy faced several important headwinds : efforts by households and businesses to rebuild their balance sheets, persistently tight credit conditions, the extreme weakness of the housing sector, the significant drag from fiscal policy in the years from 2011 to 2013, and the growth slowdown in europe and other parts of the world. turning to aggregate supply, it appears that productivity growth has slowed. 15 one notable manifestation of slow productivity growth is that last year, unemployment fell significantly further than we had anticipated as of the start of the year – a pattern that occurred in the prior four years as well – whereas gross domestic product growth fell short of our expectations, as it had in three of the four prior years. however, productivity is extremely difficult to predict. for my part, i believe that the enormous gains in human welfare that the information technology explosion seems to be generating are likely to continue, and will perhaps eventually return measured productivity growth to its long - run historical pace. conditions for liftoff although the recovery has been slow, there has been significant cumulative progress. an increase in the target federal funds range likely will be warranted before the end of the year. liftoff should occur when the expected return from raising the interest rate outweighs the expected costs of doing so. in deciding when that time has come, we will continue to monitor a wide range of information regarding labor market conditions, inflation, and financial and international developments. we anticipate that it will be appropriate to raise the target range when there has been further improvement in the labor market and we are reasonably confident that inflation will move back to our 2 percent objective over the medium term. policy normalization full normalization of monetary policy would allow the fed to rely on its traditional policy framework of adjustments to the federal funds rate. however, as long as our balance sheet remains sizable, we will not be able to implement monetary policy with our traditional tool of repurchases. it is important that, when we change the rate for the first time in a long time, we are certain that we have the operational tools to control the federal funds rate – and, accordingly, we have developed and tested new operational tools to control the federal funds rate. as discussed in the fomc ’ s