area. the single currency area is, in my view, a solid and coherent economy with all partners having strong advantages. second, i have associated myself with the strategic concept of “ competitive disinflation ” during all the period during which a previously high inflation economy, namely the french economy, was looking for being more effective in reinforcing its competitiveness through lower production cost and lower inflation rather than through monetary devaluation. now we are in an area where monetary stability is fully ensured. this does not mean that our preoccupation with competitiveness should disappear. in this new environment of “ competitive stability ” the careful examination of national competitiveness indicators, like the relative evolution of unit labour costs, reemains important. the ecb has set up a benchmark of price stability in a medium and long term perspective - according to its definition - but a large part of economic policy remains national. in this respect i said, before the setting up of the single currency, that in the new monetary regime economic policy makers would substitute competitiveness indicators to previous indicators like exchange rates and market interest rates. third, let me say to which extent we rely on research to analyse the structural transformation ongoing in the single currency area by the virtue of a fully achieved single market with a single currency. my intuition is that this phenomenon is extremely complex. that explains why trends are so difficult to substantiate, and conjectures not easily proved or rejected : the two effects underlined by krugman on the one hand and by frankel and rose on the other hand, are probably operating simultaneously in the euro area, together with the universal phenomenon of agglomeration or clusterisation. all my experience tells me that in such a rapidly changing world, where the progress of sciences and technology, the globalisation process and the very profound structural changes in europe are simultaneous, we have to be humble in front of facts and figures and be ready to take on board, as soon as it is produced, the good research you are delivering i thank you for your attention.

contributions sum up to 100 percent, and a negative contribution corresponds to dis - smoothing of consumption growth. the respective contributions are estimated over rolling ten - year backward - looking windows, based on annual data and applying the asdrubali and kim ( 2004 ) approach enhanced for relative price adjustments in the spirit of corsetti, dedola, and viani ( 2011 ). 8 / 10 bis central bankers'speeches risk - sharing via cross - border ownership of assets increased substantially following the introduction of the euro, smoothing between 30 % and 40 % of country - specific shocks to gdp by the mid - 2000s. but the contribution of capital markets declined substantially during the financial and especially during the sovereign debt crisis. the contribution of credit markets has been lower, and it even became negative during the financial crisis when european banking sector was particularly hit. in the absence of a european supra - national system of taxes and transfers, it is more pressing than ever to boost europe ’ s risk - sharing potential through financial market mechanisms. the risk - sharing benefits of integrated financial markets could in principle be large. another major benefit of the cmu is the contribution to convergent growth among member countries, resulting from the improved circulation and allocation of savings across the union. in this perspective, brexit makes it more crucial that the cmu is effectively implemented and that european growth can avail itself of the services of an integrated financial system. this is particularly true of a cmu focused on stimulating equity financing. indeed, equity and foreign direct investment ( fdi ), and longer - maturity debt in general, are leading to a more resilient form of financial integration. deeper equity markets constitute an unquestionable advantage to the us, notably in relation to the role of venture capital in promoting innovation. for the expansion of such an activity it is important to create a deep equity market that can provide significant returns in successful ipos ( initial public offers ) that can offset losses incurred by failing risky projects. the cmu is aimed at completing the single market for capital by building integrated markets for equity and bond finance. this should be achieved through both regulatory and non - regulatory actions, including the harmonisation of key legislation and policies related to financial products, such as investor protection and bankruptcy procedures. a number of concrete measures are set out in the commission ’ s action plan to underpin the further development of large capital markets in the eu. 4 the same applies to improving financial literacy and to stimulating a shift in