Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at Yale University in New Haven, USA

New Haven, USA, 22 April 2024

It is a pleasure to be here.

The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs attracts some of the sharpest minds of each generation, shaping their talent and inspiring them to pursue exceptional careers in diplomacy and public policy.

And there is plenty to be inspired by while studying at Yale. Not too far from here, tucked away in the Sterling Memorial Library in the heart of Yale’s campus, lie the papers of America’s first diplomat, Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin was many things – ambassador to France, scientist, inventor, writer and publisher, to name a few – but above all, he was a man of ideas. As a young man, around the same age as some of you here, Franklin understood the power of ideas.

“All our ideas are first admitted by the senses and imprinted on the brain, increasing in number by observation and experience,” he wrote. “There they become the subjects…