. a particular cruelty of the pandemic has been its disproportionate effects on many areas that were already suffering. we will make our way back from this, but it will take time and work. some of the most valuable information we get from these discussions is how people are working to create growth. your feedback can be an invaluable example for other communities with similar challenges. the lordstown closure served as a reminder of how interconnected local economies can be, and other areas have experienced similar losses. your work on diversifying the economy, on skills development, on small business support programs, and in so many other areas can all serve as models for others to replicate. the path ahead is likely to be challenging. but given the opportunity, i ’ ll always bet on the american people and on the kind of community resolve and dedication we ’ re hearing about today. i ’ m looking forward to your insight and to hearing more about how you ’ ve been working to revitalize youngstown ’ s economy. thank you. 1 / 1 bis central bankers'speeches

that time implied erring on the side of offering more policy support – in practice, of doing more, rather than less, qe – in order to stave off the potential impact of risks that were viewed as heavily skewed to the downside. 3 this motivation was bolstered by fears about the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission as bank rate reached its effective lower bound, as well as potential downward rigidity in wage and price setting. 4 bank of england asymmetries in the structure of the economy, in policy transmission and in the distribution of shocks all served to justify – at least on occasion, for some mpc members – an offsetting asymmetry in setting the monetary policy stance. as the post - pandemic recovery became better established last year, these risks receded – and the need to maintain an ‘ ultra - accommodative ’ stance receded with them. what ’ s more, the risks themselves became more symmetric, especially as bank rate moved away from its lower bound, and concerns about monetary policy transmission and downward nominal rigidities diminished. as a result, the case for ‘ buying insurance ’ using monetary easing via qe fell away. by its nature, an asymmetric ‘ risk management ’ approach to setting monetary policy designed to protect against skewed downside risk is inevitably somewhat over - stimulative should those downside risks not materialise. the challenge is then to manage the impact of this insurance premium, and ensure that it does not lead to departures of inflation from target. just to be clear, i don ’ t see this insurance premium as being an important driver of inflation ’ s rise above target over the past year. that rise follows from new shocks to the uk economy, which i will discuss in a moment. rather than in the form of inflation, the insurance premium to protect against downside risks through risk management has been paid in complicating what was anyway set to be a challenging process of monetary policy normalisation. by the autumn of 2021, the need to start tightening the monetary policy stance was becoming more evident as those new inflationary shocks mounted. that process was always likely to prove challenging. aside from the substantial communication and operational challenges involved, the very generous liquidity conditions established over more than a decade could have generated pockets of vulnerability in the financial sector, as the discipline on position - taking and balance sheet management imposed by liquidity constraints in normal times had been relaxed, at least for a