Excerpt
June 2024, Book Chapter: "My title might seem like an extraordinary question: what can I possibly mean by "does the ECB care about inflation ?’ If I disclose my answer is ‘no’, the question and answer might, indeed, seem completely crazy – and so uninteresting. In this
chapter, I will try to persuade the reader otherwise, or at least create a sense that the European Central Bank (ECB) has a problem it must somehow seek to reduce, if not solve. I am going to unpack the question, point towards some evidence in a rather loose way, and ofer an explanation for my answer. Partly, something really has gone wrong in advanced-economy central banking. Partly, the ECB’s extraordinarily pivotal role in the European project pulls it in conflicting directions. The first is curable both in principle and in practice, although I do not mean to imply it would be easy given where the advanced-economy central banks as a whole find themselves. The second might be curable in theory but it is hard to see how – absent severe social dislocation, which could lead anywhere – Europe will find a way through the massive challenges presented by the serious constitutional deepening that is necessary to release the ECB into the community of regular central banks. "