The adoption of inflation targets in the U.K, with the Monetary Policy Committee given instrument independence in 1997, is often presented as the answer to the assignment problem: the MPC was made responsible for the single objective of price stability, to be attained via its deployment of its single instrument, the policy rate. This chapter uses this perspective to examine the evolution of the workings of monetary policy and the MPC over its first twenty-five years, how the Bank and the MPC, came across additional possible objectives and searched for additional possible instruments. implying the need for some recasting of the role of the MPC and the way in which it operates.

The chapter describes and analyses the principles of European Macroeconomic Constitution and how it guides the ECB and EU in its macroeconomic governance. The principles can be divided into objectives and safeguards. The main objective of the economic constitution, integration through internal market, continues but gets price stability as the main macroeconomic objective, and to an extent a more elaborated open market economy principle to guide EU institutions. The safeguards start from central bank independence that are further defined by the prohibition of central bank financing and a narrow central banking model without explicit value judgments. Member States remain responsible for the other areas of economic policy with the obligation of sound fiscal policy. The principles form a logical whole and complement the earlier microeconomic constitution. However, the assumptions and theory backgrounds of the two constitutions differ substantially, which has many implications, including for the role of law and courts as well as independent experts, such as the ECB. These implications have even become apparent already in the earlier case law by the CJEU.

The last chapter is devoted to the fundamental transformation of the European Macroeconomic Constitution and particularly its objectives during the last decade that has also changed the ECB from a central bank of stability to a central bank of crisis. The great promise of the EMU that the properly designed and constitutionally protected macroeconomic framework would guarantee economic stability and prosperity has failed. In particular, the sole focus on price stability objective and constraints for national economic policy failed to ensure economic, fiscal, or even financial stability. The ECB 2021 strategy review tried to reflect these changes. The chapter analyses, how the ECB could seek to readjust its role in the euro area economy by incorporating new objectives. The discussion starts by analysing how and why the role of price stability has changed, which is followed by assessments of how the broader stability objective have gained more practical and eventually also formal importance. Furthermore, the objectives of structural economic adjustment and increasingly environmental sustainability are discussed as the new candidates for the objectives of the European Macroeconomic Constitution and the ECB. As an Epilogue, the book concludes with a broader forward-looking perspective on the options available.

Economic policy refers to the actions of the state in defining its objectives and using appropriate instruments to achieve them. The objectives of government in this regard are high long-run economic growth, equitable distribution of income and wealth, and stable prices and output. Macroeconomic policies, represented by monetary and fiscal policies, are just those intended to stabilise prices and output. This chapter begins by examining historically how these policy objectives have been addressed by the Korean government, and, against this backdrop, looks at the goals of macroeconomic policy, and especially monetary policy in Korea.

This chapter discusses the currency union’s original set-up. It first discusses the history of European monetary integration, distinguishing between two sorts of motives: one economic, the other political. From the establishment of the European Economic Community up until the Treaty of Maastricht, both have been important drivers of monetary integration. The chapter subsequently turns to the original legal set-up of the euro, in particular its internal policy dimension. The economic and political forces behind the currency union’s creation also exercised great influence on its set-up, which came to institutionalise a stability paradigm. Characteristic of this paradigm was that it granted overriding importance to price stability as a policy goal and argued for a privileged position of the central bank in achieving this. The chapter shows how its influence was most notably evident at the level of aims and principles and in the constitutional position of the European Central Bank. Yet it also shaped the single currency’s economic foundations, in particular, the Union’s limited competences in this area and its focus on fiscal prudence. It even informed the rules governing accession.

This chapter describes the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). Since the start of the monetary union in 1999, the ECB has been responsible for monetary policy making in the euro area. The ECB and the national central banks of eurozone countries make up the Eurosystem. The Maastricht Treaty defines the ECB’s primary objective as achieving ‘price stability’. The ECB specifies this objective as inflation ‘below but close to’ 2 per cent in the euro area in the medium term. The ECB has an array of instruments available to realise this objective. The chapter analyses several non-standard (or unconventional) policy measures in response to the financial crisis, the euro crisis and the low inflation. Policy decisions are the outcome of the monetary policy strategy. The ECB has a ‘two-pillar’ strategy that pairs the discussion of a broad-based analysis of the risks to price stability in the short to medium run (‘economic analysis’) with monetary factors (‘monetary analysis’).