but adjustable exchange rates. in that statement he remarked : “ let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation ”. a bugaboo, according to merriam - webster is “ an imaginary object of fear ” or “ something that causes fear or distress out of proportion to its importance ”. well imaginary or not, the ending of the bretton woods system did have consequences. ( though the consequences did not include the one feared by my future father - in - law who had just heard a few days earlier of the engagement of his daughter to a boy with a job offer from the imf : would it survive? ). consequences there were : the closing of the gold window ( announced by nixon as temporary ) became permanent and was followed by a decade in which prices in the us doubled. and they almost doubled again in the following decade! so here is my lesson no. 2 : surprise announcements can have long - run effects. bis central bankers ’ speeches credibility and truthfulness of course statements around devaluations and the run - up to them have had a tendency to weaken the credibility of central bankers ( and other public officials ). take this quote from the irish finance minister reported in the irish times, thursday january 28, 1993 : “ i want to assure the people in london who are putting around the rumours that we are going to devalue today or tomorrow that they are wrong ”. true enough, no devaluation occurred on the thursday or friday … but it did on the saturday. although widely cited, former federal reserve board vice chairman alan blinder famously did not say “ the last duty of the central banker is to tell the public the truth ”. what he did do, it seems, was conduct a survey of central banker attitudes, “ in which officials had ranked ‘ a duty to be open and truthful with the public ’ last among criteria on why credibility was important ”. well, that ’ s even worse, though it ’ s not blinder ’ s view ; it was the view of many central bankers he surveyed in 1999. devaluation denials may have been an obvious reason for this, and it is perhaps unsurprising that regimes such as the disastrous erm, which create such pressures for disinformation, can be among the most ineffective. lesson no. 3 : central - banking - by - surprise makes candid communication extremely difficult. yet we all agree that credible communication is essential for lasting policy success

g20 ) now has a much more important role than it did before the financial crisis. it established a working group on reinforcing international cooperation and promoting integrity in financial markets that called on the international monetary fund ( imf ) and the financial stability board ( fsb ) to explore information gaps and propose ways to strengthen data collection. the report of the imf and the fsb, entitled “ the financial crisis and information gaps ” 16, makes 20 high - level recommendations to address the measurement of risks in the financial sector, international financial linkages and the vulnerability of economies to shocks, as well as the communication of official statistics and was endorsed by the g20 in november 2009. i am pleased that this report was produced with significant input from the ecb. “ mfi balance sheet and interest rate statistics and cebs ’ guidelines on finrep and corep ”, february 2010. committee on european insurance and occupational pension supervisors ( ceiops ). directive 2009 / 138 / ec of the european parliament and of the council on the taking - up and pursuit of the business of insurance and reinsurance ( solvency ii ) ( recast ) oj l 335, 17. 12. 2009, p. 1. committee of european securities regulators ( cesr ). see http : / / www. financialstabilityboard. org / publications / r _ 091107e. pdf. as new collections of data from reporting agents will be required in most g20 economies to close information gaps, a multi - year programme, combined with an appropriate governance framework and sustained policy support, is needed to implement the recommendations. the g20 have therefore received an action plan in june 2010, detailing the recommendations and timetables for their implementation. this action plan was welcomed recently also by the international monetary and financial committee of the imf board of governors. although the need for more comprehensive and more comparable statistics extends beyond the g20 economies, the g20 have volunteered to set an example. because of the economic importance of the g20 economies, their data are sufficient to compile reliable and timely key world aggregates, such as quarterly gdp, within two months of the end of the reference quarter. experience in the euro area confirms the traditional statistical paradigm that more aggregated data, such as euro area or world aggregates, are more reliable than their component data. comparable statistics are important in a globalised world in which decision - makers and the public at large need to focus not only on their