gov / newsevents / pressreleases / monetary20171011a. htm. 19 see janet l. yellen ( 2016 ), “ the federal reserve ’ s monetary policy toolkit : past, present, and future, ” speech delivered at “ designing resilient monetary policy frameworks for the future, ” a symposium sponsored by the federal reserve bank of kansas city, held in jackson hole, wyo., august 26 ; and david reifschneider ( 2016 ), “ gauging the ability of the fomc to respond to future recessions ( pdf ), ” finance and economics discussion series 2016 – 068 ( washington : board of governors of the federal reserve system, august ). 7 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches

regulatory quality affect incentives for people and businesses to invest in physical and human capital, technology and the organization of production. therefore, particular emphasis should now be placed on improving the public administration, implementing the land registry, strengthening institutions, cutting red tape, lowering the regulatory burden and ensuring the predictability and stability of legislation, reducing entry barriers into network industries, retail trade and professional services as well as on enhancing judicial efficiency. moreover, with regard to independent authorities, it is important to strengthen their administrative and financial autonomy and ensure respect for their independence, as well as accountability towards parliament. 3. adopting a growth - friendly fiscal policy mix. the over - performance relative to the fiscal policy targets over the past three years strengthened fiscal policy credibility, but it came at a cost, i. e., lower economic growth. this is due to the high reliance of the fiscal policy mix on tax policy measures and tax rate hikes. according to the global competitiveness index 2017 – 2018, greece ranks last and second to last as regards the adequacy of the tax system to provide incentives to invest ( 137th out 137 countries ) and to work ( 136th out of 137 countries ). high tax rates actions encourage the shift of activities towards the shadow economy and provide incentives for tax evasion. hence, the fiscal mix is not sustainable and must change. more emphasis has to be placed on cutting non - productive expenditures, increasing the public sector efficiency, including the management of state property and improving the tax administration. these actions will lead to a fairer distribution of the fiscal burden and will facilitate the reduction of the excessively high tax rates. 4. tackling the problem of non - performing exposures / loans ( npes / npls ) and strategic defaulters which constrains the banking system ’ s ability to finance economic growth. the npe reduction targets for the next two years are ambitious compared to last year, implying that banks will need to step up their efforts and make full use of the available toolkit for private debt resolution. moreover, banks will be facing new challenges in 2018, most notably the implementation of ifrs 9, stricter treatment of loan - loss provisions, as well as the eu - wide stress test to be conducted by the ecb. thus, banks need to step up their efforts to attain their operational targets for reducing their npls and, ideally, over - achieve them now that the economy has returned to positive growth. in this context, they need to broaden