their challenging return targets, such institutions could be prone to engage in search - for - yield behaviour and take on excessive risks. monitoring financial stability developments our current assessment is that there is no widespread emergence of imbalances, but there remain some localised areas that require continued close monitoring and vigilance. in keeping with our institutional framework, macroprudential policy has been appropriately active in mitigating the build - up of risk in these localised areas. in terms of the banking sector, authorities have taken decisions to identify global and domestic systemically important financial institutions, requiring them to hold additional capital buffers. moreover, authorities have taken decisions to calibrate the systemic risk and countercyclical capital buffers, as well as sectoral capital requirements for real estate and housing. in terms of risk - taking by banks, we see no evidence of a widespread development of credit3 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches fuelled bubbles. in the last quarter of 2016, euro area bank lending for house purchases increased by around 2. 7 % a year – well below the growth rates of up to 12 % a year recorded in the run - up to the crisis. in the same quarter, nominal residential real estate prices in the euro area grew by 3. 8 % a year. although residential real estate price dynamics are gaining momentum, valuation estimates suggest that, in the euro area as a whole, there are no signs of imbalances in such markets. 8 nevertheless, there is considerable heterogeneity across the euro area, and we closely monitor countries with more robust developments in real estate. we also closely monitor developments in the commercial real estate markets, especially where prices in the prime segment have departed from their long - term averages. 9 it is also worth noting that this is an area where national macroprudential authorities are already quite active, with many countries in the euro area having introduced prudential measures, such as caps on loan - to - value ratios, to counteract emerging risks. 10 moreover, there are few signs of banks in aggregate taking on excessive risk in their lending. according to the ecb ’ s euro area bank lending survey, banks have certainly decreased on average their lending rates and softened their credit standards in the wake of our monetary policy measures. the availability of loans to small and medium - sized enterprises has improved since october 2014. 11 but a closer inspection of the drivers of changes in credit standards is informative. heightened “ risk perceptions ” and

##b had to use in order to face the challenges of the crisis and the threat of too low inflation have been successful to avoid the worst for the european monetary union. from innovative liquidity facilities to asset purchase programmes and negative deposit rates, non - standard measures proved crucial to avoid deflation and foster the economic recovery. we have not yet achieved our main goal of inflation being below but close to 2 percent. we share with other advanced economies the puzzle of wage and prices not responding to strong growth as usual. by keeping a sufficient degree of monetary policy accommodation we can be confident that our goal will eventually be reached, in accordance with our mandate.. i thank the presenters, the discussants, the organisers and the audience for this successful workshop. non - standard measures are going to be part of our toolkit for some time to come, and some of them might even be deemed standard measures at some point, so i can promise you that we will continue to organise similar events. i am looking forward to seeing further contributions on the ongoing debates, further analysis on the potential costs of non - standard measures and new results related to relevant questions like the impact of non - standard measures on inequality that i recently addressed. 7 see constancio, v., ( 2017 ), “ inequality and macroeconomic policies ”. i look forward to your future work to foster our understanding of the non - standard times that continue to challenge all of us. references adam, k., and a. marcet ( 2011 ), “ internal rationality, imperfect market knowledge and asset prices ”, journal of economic theory, 146 : 1224 – 1252. adam, k., a. marcet and j. beutel ( 2017 ), “ stock price booms and expected capital gains ”, american economic review 107 ( 8 ) : 2352 – 2408, august. altavilla, c., d. giannone and m. lenza ( 2016 ), “ the financial and macroeconomic effects of the omt announcements, ” international journal of central banking, september. andrade, p. and j. breckenfelder, f. de fiore, p. karadi and o. tristani ( 2016 ), “ the ecb ’ s asset purchase programme : an early assessment ”, ecb working paper series no. 1956. angeletos, g. - m. and c. lian ( 2016 ), “ forward guidance without common knowledge,