similar to what others call minutes. i am convinced that, for the purposes of establishing credibility and reducing uncertainties in the market, informing the public of such an agreed position on the part of the governing council is superior to publishing details of a council discussion which are naturally difficult to assess for those who are not present at the meeting. moreover, as mentioned, we should not pretend to know more than we do. it is thus important not to try to give guidance when the ecb itself is not sure. i very much agree that giving too much information is not always helpful. i am convinced that the eurosystem already provides timely, high - frequency information of good quality, but, as i have said, trying to further improve our communications is an ongoing exercise.

compared with other advanced countries. bis central bankers ’ speeches how can we explain this puzzle? how can nominal rigidities plus supply - side pressures not produce bad or worse macroeconomic outcomes? i believe that the strong anchoring of inflation expectations in the euro area is the key to understanding this good economic performance of the euro area. bis central bankers ’ speeches inflation expectations have remained solidly anchored in line with our definition of price stability throughout the crisis. in particular, there was no materialisation of a deflation risk. this has enormously facilitated our task, especially during the period of economic freefall in the winter of 2008 / 09. other indicators corroborate the finding that at the aggregate level the real economy of the euro has proved relatively dynamic in comparison with the us : real output per capita has grown at a similar pace in the euro area as in the united states. bis central bankers ’ speeches employment growth in the euro area has also been strong over the past 12 years. more than 14 million jobs have been created since the introduction of the euro, compared with 8 million in the united states. this is not to suggest that there is time for complacency. unemployment at 9. 9 % of the labour force remains much too high, and structural reforms are of the essence to make the euro area economy much more flexible and to elevate its growth potential. finally, public finances in the euro area as a whole are relatively sound. as elsewhere, the financial crisis has left its mark on government deficit and debt in the euro area. yet, the fiscal deficit in the euro area on aggregate for this year is estimated at less than one half of that in the united states and japan. one may argue, however that this bird ’ s eye view is misleading. one common belief is that the us economy is more homogeneous than the economy of the euro area. in other words, aggregate economic data may hide very significant differences in the variance in economic performance across regions within a monetary union. economic diversity in the euro area and the united states looking more closely at the regional dispersion across us regions and euro area economies show that, contrary to what is generally perceived, the dispersion of many of the key indicators is similar. let us take a look at the inflation indicator. the dispersion of hicp inflation in euro area countries remained broadly stable since the late 1990s, at a level similar to the 14 us metropolitan statistical areas. during the crisis we saw a temporary increase in