Ladies and gentlemen
I am very pleased to welcome you to the eighth Karl Brunner Distinguished Lecture. We are delighted and honoured that Professor Kristin Forbes accepted our invitation. I would like to thank the ETH Zurich and its President, Joël Mesot, for their hospitality.
When we began our search for tonight’s speaker, we had specific qualities in mind. We were looking for an exceptional economist who is at home both in academia and policy, and who can communicate complex insights clearly. With these qualities in mind, the name Kristin Forbes quickly emerged. Not only is she a distinguished economist, but she has also rotated between academia and policy positions throughout her career. Her work combines both areas: she uses research to inform policy, and

Ladies and gentlemen
I am very pleased to welcome you to the Third High-Level Conference on Global Risk, Uncertainty, and Volatility. Thank you all for taking the time to join us today. I would especially like to thank our colleagues at the Bank for International Settlements and the Federal Reserve Board for working together with us in organising this event.
The topic of this year’s conference – policy-making under uncertainty – is highly relevant. There is, for instance, substantial uncertainty regarding the impact of accumulated monetary tightening on future inflation. There is also high uncertainty about how the current geopolitical tensions will affect the global economy. These examples illustrate just two of many different sources of uncertainty. So how can

In September 2022, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised its policy rate back into positive territory. At the same time, it adopted a new approach to implementing monetary policy in the money market. This approach employs two levers: the tiered remuneration of reserves, also referred to as reserve tiering, and reserve absorption.
The speech explains why, with a large central bank balance sheet, remunerating the reserve holdings of commercial banks is the only practical way to achieve positive money market interest rates. It also reviews the SNB’s experience with the new implementation approach and discusses an adjustment to the reserve tiering framework – the lowering of the threshold factor from 28 to 25 – which will take effect on 1 December 2023.
In addition,

As part of its contribution to the stability of the financial system, the Swiss National Bank acts as lender of last resort. In this role, it makes emergency liquidity assistance available to banks when, in crisis situations, they need substantial liquid funds which they are no longer able to obtain on the market.
The SNB provides this liquidity assistance in the form of secured loans. It accepts a broad range of collateral for this – in particular also illiquid assets. The aim is for banks to be able to obtain as much liquidity as possible from the SNB should the need arise.
Until now this liquidity assistance has been prepared with all systemically important banks. It is now being expanded to allow all banks to obtain liquidity assistance against mortgages when

Ladies and gentlemen
It is with great pleasure that my colleague Thomas Moser and I welcome you to this year’s Swiss National Bank (SNB) Money Market Event in Geneva. We are very glad that so many of you have joined us this evening, be it on site or remotely.
Since we last met in this setting a year ago, fighting inflation has become the most important task for central banks worldwide. Many countries have experienced a surge in inflation, the scale and pace of which very few anticipated. A large part of this surge was due to ongoing disruptions to global supply chains caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Russia’s war against Ukraine – in addition to causing immense human misery – has further contributed to inflationary pressures through its impact on energy and

In the recent past, the political and economic backdrop has changed dramatically. Inflation is far too high almost everywhere, and central banks are raising their policy interest rates at a time when stocks of government debt are large. In some places, central bank independence is being publicly called into question. Threats to central banks’ independence, and thus to their ability to fulfil their monetary policy mandates, are particularly acute in the current economic environment.
History teaches us that when central banks are closely tied to the fiscal authority, expansionary monetary policy is often used, directly or indirectly, to finance government deficits. Time and again, this has ended in high inflation. Price stability can only be achieved with an

Ladies and Gentlemen
I am very pleased to welcome you all to the sixth Karl Brunner Distinguished Lecture. The Swiss National Bank established this annual lecture series in honour of the Swiss economist Karl Brunner, one of the leading monetary economists of the last century. Our aim with these lectures is to reach a broad audience, and to contribute to the public debate on issues related to central banking and economics more broadly.
This year’s Karl Brunner Distinguished Lecture is special for several reasons. After a three-year break caused by the pandemic, the lecture finally returns to ETH Zurich. I am delighted to see so many of you here. I also want to thank Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, for making these fantastic premises available to us yet again.

Ladies and Gentlemen
I welcome you all to the ceremony of the Carl Menger Award, given by the Verein für Socialpolitik. I do so in the name of the sponsors of the award, namely the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Swiss National Bank, as well as on behalf of the selection committee. This important award is given in recognition of outstanding research work relating to monetary economics and monetary policy.
The city selected as the venue for this year’s Annual Conference of the Verein für Socialpolitik has a very special appeal to central banks. Basel has hosted the BIS, the bank of central banks, since its creation in 1930. In a way, Basel can be considered as the capital of central banks. I regularly travel to the BIS to meet my

Andréa M. Maechler / Thomas Moser, Member of the Governing Board / Alternate Member of the Governing Board
In many ways, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is unprecedented. The economic shock has been global and massive, affecting both economic supply and demand simultaneously. To mitigate the economic impact, the crisis response has had to be swift and innovative – including in Switzerland. The Swiss National Bank has played an important role here, preventing an excessive appreciation of the Swiss franc through foreign currency purchases. Moreover, it has helped to ease strains in US dollar funding markets by participating in a series of coordinated central bank actions. By setting up the SNB COVID-19 refinancing facility (CRF), a mechanism designed to