Welcome address by Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, at the 5th joint ECB, Bank of Canada and Federal Reserve Bank of New York Conference on expectations surveys, central banks and the economy

Frankfurt am Main, 1 October 2024

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this fifth joint conference on expectations surveys organised by the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In my remarks today, I will delve into the fascinating world of expectations surveys and their relevance to central banks. I will review how useful expectations surveys have proven to be for central banks over the period since 2019, the year we held our first conference in this series. In addition, I will touch on the challenges facing central banks in using surveys. The fact that central banks generally operate under great uncertainty has come to the fore over the past five years. Today, too, we are facing huge uncertainty – not least in view of the many…