have put it this week – through the reserve bank of malawi, taken the policy actions to - date. we will never know. as i close, i believe commendations are in order for your continued participation and contributions towards ecama, its mission, as well as for the way you have championed economics. now everyone wants to be known as such. you have more work to do ahead of us. keep the torch burning. oh, yes, perhaps i should remind us that ecama ’ s sole existence depends on our resources, time, and dedication. your gathering here tonight in such large numbers to dine and share economic experiences is clear evidence of your willingness to enhance the economic profession and progress in the country for the benefit of the state and its bis central bankers ’ speeches citizens. please do make sure you are a registered member and to pay any dues. you get from ecama what you put in – ideas for strengthening the association. with these remarks, it is now my pleasure and privilege to wish you a great dinner and fruitful discussions, bon appetite. i thank you for your attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

) that central banks could perform their function best when given independent authority over policy. the consensus was based on the belief that the influence of elected politicians with their presumed short - term focus on re - election would bias monetary policy towards higher inflation. monetary policy should thus be delegated to an autonomous agency with a clearly defined objective of price stability. the delegation in turn was thought possible because monetary, fiscal and prudential policies were believed to operate separately, relying on their particular sets of instruments and exerting only limited influence on the other policy areas, hence requiring a minimum of coordination. for quite some time the consensus worked fine, seemingly vindicated by a long period of relatively stable output growth and low and stable inflation, which was labelled the great moderation. events since 2008 have disproved the idea of a neat separation of policies. prudential policy had been unable to prevent the occurrence of a massive financial crisis, possibly helped along by unintended side effects of monetary and fiscal policy. a key lesson of the crisis was then that in the absence of financial stability, monetary policy can be severely hampered and fiscal policy pushed off track. re - establishing financial stability in turn can come at a very high price ; and part of it may be achieved through emergency actions and balance sheet bis central bankers ’ speeches policy of the central bank, again blurring the separation lines between fiscal and monetary policy. using the central bank balance sheet a few years ago the balance sheets of central banks have been a barely noticed sideshow. the focus was on interest rate policy. today, with interest rates close to or at their lower bound and consequently hardly moving, attention has shifted to what happens in the balance sheets. after having been stable or growing steadily for years, balance sheets have expanded massively since the onset of the crisis ( figure 1 ). total assets and liabilities multiplied within a matter of months, rising in total by a factor of three in the case of the eurosystem, a factor of above four for the federal reserve system ( fed ) and close to five for the bank of england and the swiss national bank. in the euro area and switzerland the level has stabilized or even declined over the last year, while in the us and the uk the trend is still upwards. one reason for the expansion is that the balance sheet is the main ( if not the only ) remaining instrument of central banks when policy rates cannot be lowered further. in fact, however, balance sheet policy had already played a significant