crisis, policymakers are interested in understanding how the fluctuations in assets prices will affect aggregate demand. during these times, knowledge provided by the surveys comes at a premium. in particular, the way household spending reacts to changes in interest rates is of continuing relevance for monetary policy, not only during crisis periods. important elements of this reaction are the demand for housing and the different homeownership ratios across euroarea countries. residential investment is an important channel through which interest rates changes are transmitted via households through the economy. as purchase of a house is often financed with a mortgage, understanding the access of households to mortgage credit increases our understanding of the transmission of interest rate changes to credit demand. central banks regularly monitor the evolution of credit aggregates. mortgages make up the bulk of household liabilities and are an important element of total credit. two interesting puzzles in this context are : ( 1 ) the origins of the enormous diversity of homeownership levels, and ( 2 ) the large differences in mortgage types that we see across the countries of the euro area. in some countries, with germany and france as examples, households tend to hold fixed rate mortgages, whereas in other countries, such as spain and portugal, households typically hold adjustable rate mortgages. despite big advances in the integration of financial markets in the euro area, differences in the fixation of mortgage rates seem to persist. micro household data can shed light on the origins of these differences, namely whether these are caused by household characteristics, institutions, government policies or just different tastes. understanding these differences is important because the way the assets and liabilities of households are structured has implications for their relative sensitivity to market interest rates and, ultimately, for the transmission of monetary policy. for instance, the transmission of interest rate shocks is likely to be stronger and more immediate in countries with adjustable - rate mortgages. importance of distributional information household survey data are not only useful to estimate more precisely the behaviour of households with respect to spending, saving and credit, it also provides unique information on the distribution of assets and liabilities. distribution of assets and liabilities across households and possible mismatches between assets and liabilities of individual households affect the transmission of monetary policy to macro aggregates : different distributions of wealth will generally lead to different aggregate fluctuations in the macro aggregates in reaction to shocks. this brings me to the second reason for the usefulness of micro data. the distribution of assets and liabilities has an effect on how risks are distributed across different

benoit cœure : the use of local currencies in eu canddate and potential candidate countries speech by mr benoit cœure, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the international conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the central bank of bosnia and herzegovina, sarajevo, 22 september 2017. * * * dear governor, dear member of the presidency of bosnia and herzegovina, dear chairman of the council of ministers of bosnia and herzegovina, dear ambassador, dear colleagues from the central banks, ladies and gentlemen, i am delighted to be here in sarajevo today to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the central bank of bosnia and herzegovina ( cbbh ). i would like to thank governor softic for the invitation to speak to you on this occasion. when the cbbh was founded in 1997, people in western europe were still paying with their national currencies. the ecb did not yet exist and there had not even been a decision on which countries would eventually participate in monetary union from its launch. for a european central banker, this almost feels like ancient history. the past 20 years have been too hectic, too exciting and too eventful to fully appreciate the passage of time. so significant birthdays are always a welcome opportunity to take a step back and consider what has worked and what has not. and for the cbbh, like for many other central banks, there can only be one yardstick to measure success : the achievement of monetary stability, the primary objective of the cbbh. and looking back over the past 20 years, you clearly have delivered on your mandate. by effectively implementing the currency board arrangement, you created trust and confidence in the currency and you were able to secure this confidence over time. i would like to congratulate the past and present management and all staff of the cbbh for this success over the past 20 years. your achievements are particularly remarkable when seen in the light of the challenges you have faced in implementing the monetary framework. a small, open economy like bosnia and herzegovina, where total merchandise trade accounts for more than two - thirds of nominal gdp, is constantly exposed to foreign shocks that are often hard to anticipate. this is a demanding environment for central banks, in particular when several shocks hit the economy at the same time, as has been the case in recent years. in fact, it is probably fair to say that the global economy was in almost constant flux following the outbreak of the financial crisis ten years ago. here in