Publication

This commentary discusses the debate over the effectiveness of the European Central Bank's policy of buying large volumes of government bonds to move inflation closer to its target of close to 2%. The author contends that evaluating the policy’s effectiveness is more of an art than a science, meaning there is plenty of room for distortion and bias in its assessment. He then outlines how this has enabled each side in the debate to distort their evaluations of the policy, with supporters emphasizing that the policy has not led to large increases in inflation while detractors point out that it has not led to robust growth.