to make our economy more resilient to shocks and fit for the future, all while avoiding the worst scenarios for climate change. to my mind, that is too good an opportunity to pass up. 1 gordon, j. n. and judge, k. ( 2018 ), “ the origins of a capital market union in the united states ”, ecgi law working paper no 395 / 2018, april. 2 after five years, the estimated multipliers associated with green spending are about two to seven times larger than those associated with spending on non - eco - friendly projects. see batini, n., di serio, m., fragetta, m., melina, g. and waldron, a., ( 2021 ), “ building back better : how big are green spending multipliers? ”, working paper no. 2021 / 087, march 2021. 3 cimadomo, j., hauptmeier, s., palazzo, a. a. and popov, a. ( 2018 ), “ risk sharing in the euro area ”, economic bulletin, issue 3, ecb. 4 european commission ( 2020 ), “ impact assessment ” accompanying the document “ stepping up europe ’ s 2030 climate ambition : investing in a climate - neutral future for the benefit of our people ”, 17 september. 5 european commission ( 2020 ), identifying europe ’ s recovery needs, 27 may. 6 briere, m. and ramelli, s. ( 2021 ), “ can responsible investing encourage retail investors to invest in equities? ”, ecmi commentary, no 73, european capital markets institute, march. 7 according to efama market insights, in december 2020 the net assets of european esg funds amounted to eur 1. 2 trillion, with an annual growth rate of 37 %. 8 de haas, r. and popov, a. ( 2019 ), “ finance and carbon emissions ”, working paper series, no 2318, ecb, september ; popov, a. ( 2020 ), “ does financial structure affect the carbon footprint of the economy? ”, financial integration and structure in the euro area, ecb, march. 9 in 2017, europe had 76 % more patents in the digital - green domain than the united states and over four times more than china. european investment bank ( 2021 ), investment report 2020 / 2021 : building a smart and green europe in the covid -

and our decision to enter into our app in january. while in some quarters this was seen as excessive activism, in others – often on this side of the channel – it was seen as excessively hesitant. the argument was that as a price stabilityoriented central bank with a symmetric mandate, we should have followed other major central banks and deployed asset purchases sooner to push inflation back to our objective. if one looks at the steps we have taken based on the data available in each period, it becomes clear that we acted based on an evolving medium - term outlook and taking into account the balance of risks at each moment – as any responsible policymaker should. the process in 2014 that led to the launch of our app illustrates well this point. bis central bankers ’ speeches at the start of 2014 we were confronted, on the one hand, with a consistent and broad - based downward trend in past inflation, falling from 3 % at the end of 2011 to less than 1 % at the beginning of 2014. but on the other, sentiment on the economic outlook was relatively positive for the year, with nearly all forecasters expecting the recovery to strengthen as the year progressed. in this context, we felt relatively comfortable that the medium - term inflation outlook was secure. while we were very alert to the risks to that outlook, there was no clear justification for a strong expansion of the monetary policy stance at that time. moreover, the use of large - scale asset purchases was unprecedented in the euro area and came with concerns that do not exist in other advanced economies. there was more uncertainty about the strength of the relative transmission channels given the euro area ’ s financial structures ; and there was more concern about the possible side - effects and redistributive effects of holding large amounts of government bonds in a monetary union that is not a fiscal union. all this created a further reason to be patient. in my view, deploying asset purchases had to be an ultima ratio decision. we had to see clear evidence of heightened deflationary risks either in the realised inflation data or in the movements of inflation expectations. that evidence started to appear in the summer of 2014 as the macroeconomic situation worsened unexpectedly and the underlying impetus that we saw earlier in the year faded. this removed an important driver behind the reflation scenario we had expected. the sharp fall - off in oil prices that began in the late summer added then further disinflationary pressures, feeding also into core inflation. the result was that, by january