do techniques used for quality adjustment filter out pure price changes in products if performance improves? do reporting units reflect the relative importance of online shopping and traditional retail formats? 2 / 8 bis central bankers'speeches perhaps surprisingly, the quantitative impact of digitalisation on the overall cpi has so far been limited. in germany, the products for which prices have declined the most include audio, photo, and information devices ( figure 2 ). in some cases, prices have fallen by more than 10 per cent annually – against an overall increase in the cpi of less than 2 per cent. one reason for this discrepancy is that ict goods such as audio, photo, and information devices account for only 1½ per cent of the current consumer basket. but even if we supplement the products of a predominantly digital character ( eg software, e - books ) or consisting mainly of digital components ( eg computers, smartphones ) with those goods which are affected by digitalisation to a higher degree ( eg technical household appliances, entertainment equipment, vehicles ), the share increases to no more than 10 per cent. the widespread use of the internet has altered retail formats. online shopping and mail - order trade doubled their share in germany between 2005 and 2010. nonetheless, in 2010, less than 10 per cent of all retail transactions were settled through these channels ( figure 3 ). in the meantime, the share has certainly increased markedly, given the evidence that the turnover of online retailers has continued to rise steeply in the current decade. 3 / 8 bis central bankers'speeches changes in buying behaviour may pose challenges to statisticians. but digitalisation also offers potential benefits. digitalisation enables vendors to change prices at a higher frequency. nominal rigidities which result from the costs of price changes ( “ menu costs ” ) thus decline. dynamic pricing makes traditional tools for the collection of information on prices very labour - intensive or even renders them inappropriate. in a digitised world, statisticians are able to apply web - based tools to gather price information. they can also use it equipment to store, process, and analyse vast amounts of data. at this conference, it will also be discussed how the use of scanner data can facilitate research on price statistics. the use of scanner data has, for example, revolutionised research on the “ law of one price ". traditional empirical work using price indices had mostly found substantive violations of the law of one price. with the availability of micro price data, however, the conventional

demonstrate that they promote macroeconomic welfare. now, financial market regulation is being tightened because the negative macroeconomic consequences of financial crises have moved into the spotlight again. lord turner, the former chairman of the british financial services authority ( fsa ) came straight to the point in 2010 when talking about financial innovations and regulation, admitting self - critically “ we were philosophically inclined to accept that if innovation created new markets and products that must be beneficial and that if regulation stymied innovation that must be bad. we are now more aware of the instability risks which might offset the benefits of such innovation. ” 3. 2 role of the central banks since the financial crisis, there has also been more discussion about the role played by central banks. first, experience of the financial crisis has again raised the question of how monetary policymakers should deal with asset price bubbles. the prevailing opinion before the crisis was that monetary policy is a blunt sword when dealing with exaggerations in the asset markets. to “ prick a bubble ”, interest rates would have to be increased so sharply that it would entail severe macroeconomic collateral damage. as a further argument against pricking bubbles, it was claimed that central banks were unable to identify the emergence of such bubbles any better or earlier than other wellinformed market players. instead, the central banks should clear up the mess, so to speak, after the bubble had burst by means of massive interest rate cuts and injections of liquidity. however, this approach, or as it is also known the jackson hole consensus, the greenspan doctrine or simply the “ mop - up strategy ” was discredited by the crisis. even though those in favour of bursting speculative bubbles are few and far between, a policy of actively leaning against the wind is now gaining more widespread support. this approach is often referred to as “ more symmetrical monetary policy ". however, this does not mean that monetary policy should assume responsibility for financial stability. macroprudential policymakers have a more appropriate toolkit for safeguarding financial stability. in this context, the act on monitoring financial stability ( gesetz zur uberwachung der finanzstabilitat ) assigns the bundesbank important tasks in the field of macroprudential oversight. the bank is responsible, in particular, for analysing factors that are key to financial stability, identifying risks, making proposals to the financial stability committee regarding the issuing of warnings and recommendations, and evaluating the implementation of such warnings and recommendations