What would the ECB’s monetary policy have been if its target had been a mix of goods and services prices and real estate prices?
The ECB cannot ignore the fact that bubbles in real estate prices always trigger a crisis, while it is not clear that a slightly higher inflation has a negative effect on well-being. Normally, this should lead the central bank to use not only inflation in prices of goods and services as a target, but a mix of inflation in prices of goods and services and inflation in residential real estate prices. If the ECB had done this, it would have: Conducted a markedly more restrictive monetary policy from 2001 to 2008; But would also have been able to maintain an expansionary monetary policy after the 2009 crisis.