to believe that the objective of repairing prior misallocations of credit and capital across sectors should be incorporated in one way or another as a “ high priority ” in the policy process. but we immediately run up against three issues here. the first issue concerns the governance of instrument setting for the central bank. let us take a very simplified representation of monetary policy - making : a taylor rule. how would this “ high priority ” be included in this taylor - inspired interest - rate - setting process? would it be an additional objective to be traded off, on a par with inflation and demand conditions, i. e. an additional reaction variable weighted by its own coefficient? or should it be expressed as a constraint, a knock - out clause, which could become binding only occasionally? and, in the latter case, who should decide when this rebalancing or inversion of policy priorities – from time to time overriding the taylor prescriptions – should be pursued? the second issue is one of policy legitimacy. it may be easy to say : the business sector as a whole is over - indebted and we ( central banks ) need to promote a correction, first and foremost avoiding monetary policies that can induce moral hazard, and thus only obstruct and delay the adjustment that is anyhow inevitable. but it is more difficult to say “ within the business sector, this industry deserves less credit relative to that industry ” without quickly entering the terrain of allocative policies, which should be alien to our mandate. and i fear rebalancing policies will inevitably have allocative implications. 5 finally, the third issue is the one that bothers me most. let us take it for granted that monetary policy should – at least occasionally – deviate from its stylised taylor representation and look at and act upon financial imbalances. let ’ s imagine a post - crisis situation, where various sectors are over - indebted. let ’ s also assume that a central bank has a clear view about the size of “ excess indebtedness ” and its concentration across sectors. third assumption : the central bank is assigned a price stability mandate, which it needs to deliver “ over the medium term ”. probably, in this situation, the time horizon for normalising inflation will be the relevant parameter that this central bank will have to select to chart its way out of a deep crisis in a manner that encourages – or at least does not discourage – structural rebalancing in the financial

produces other european statistics, such as the harmonised index of consumer prices ( hicp ) or gross domestic product, population and social conditions statistics, regional statistics, agricultural and fishery statistics, environmental statistics, industry, transport and energy statistics, all of which are necessary to support the various policies of the european union. any successful cooperation in the area of european economic and financial statistics therefore encompasses the national central banks and the national statistical institutes. such cooperation has been successfully pursued for more than two decades in the committee on monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics ( cmfb ), which has delivered remarkable results and built up its reputation. the cmfb ’ s achievements include the euro area accounts by sector, the work on pension schemes, revision policies and seasonal and working day adjustments. moreover, the advice of the cmfb to eurostat on complex statistical issues related to the excessive deficit procedure has received a lot of attention in the past two decades. this close cooperation between the escb and the european statistical system is at the heart of the leading role that european statistics play in international statistical initiatives, such as the g20 data gaps initiative and the imf special data dissemination standard plus initiative, in which seven out of the first eight adherents were eu member states. new demands emerging from the crisis while the development of european economic and financial statistics by the escb was already impressive before the financial crisis occurred, the ecb ’ s functions have been expanded during the crisis and this has led to new challenges and a remarkable development of escb statistics. more specifically, escb statistics had to respond to three main challenges : ( i ) from 2008, the monetary policy of the euro area had to be conducted during turbulent times and new data needs emerged for monitoring often unconventional policy measures and mitigating systemic risks. ( ii ) in addition to its primary function of maintaining price stability, the ecb had to focus more on financial stability and it received a mandate to support the statistical needs of the european systemic risk board ( esrb ). ( iii ) finally, the ecb became responsible for banking supervision on 4 november 2014 and, as a result, the statistics departments of the central banks have yet another partner to serve. one of the most important challenges arising from the financial crisis has been the dramatic increase in the need for very timely, granular data. starting with the crisis, aggregated data became less representative on their own and did not suffice to reveal the whole story. the same aggregated statistics can be the