An Assessment of ECB Action

Jean-Paul Fitoussi

Executive Summary

An assessment of the conduct of monetary policy in Europe must necessarily be made along two distinct and complementary lines. The first is a comparison with the policies followed in the past. The second line has to assess whether monetary policy is adapted to the new conditions that came into existence with the inception of the Euro. The picture with respect to these two criteria is mixed. Monetary policy has certainly improved with respect to the policies followed in the 1990s, during the run up to the euro. In fact, the ECB proved to be much more growth friendly than its predecessors. On the other hand, though, the challenges posed by the new environment, the management of a large open economy, have not been internalized by the ECB, that was less reactive than the Fed, and too focussed on current inflation. The tightening of monetary conditions in the euro zone, mainly due to the euro appreciation, was not sufficiently cautioned by monetary policy. Especially considering the poor economic performances of the euro zone in the past few years, we must conclude that monetary policy was not helpful in fostering growth recovery in the euro area. The ECB did not fully recognise its new responsibility of conducting the monetary policy of a "big country".

"La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile"

The most obvious way to assess monetary policy in Europe since the ECB came into existence is to compare it with the policies that preceded it, particularly in the years immediately preceding the inception of the euro. Nevertheless, such an analysis would necessarily be incomplete if we did not ask at the same time whether the policy framework put in place by the ECB is consistent with its environment. Such a dual assessment is all the more necessary, that the monetary union represented a regime change for Europe. Before, if we except Germany, monetary conditions in each single European countries of the EMS were determined by the exigency of keeping the exchange rate parity with the DM. No wonder then if most of the time, it was not adapted to internal economic conditions. Now, the ECB enjoys full monetary policy autonomy, and has to take into account the global effects of its policy. Thus, any assessment necessarily has to consider whether the ECB stood up to this increased responsibility. The natural benchmark against which to compare the ECB is of course the US Fed, the only other central bank that faces such a global responsibility.

To anticipate on the conclusions, if on one side the record of monetary policy under the ECB has considerably improved with respect to the policies followed in the 1990s, on the other it does not seem to have fully internalized the regime change, and has been too inertial if we consider its increased responsibilities.

A Comparison with the 1990s: A More Appropriate Monetary Policy

Figure 1 shows the short term real interest rate, and the growth rate, since 1989. It further reports the "critical gap", the difference between the two that can be seen as a first broad measure of the degree of restrictiveness of monetary policy (a more sophisticated measure will be discussed below). 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 % Real interest rate (3 months)

Real GDP growth rate

Critical Gap

Source: Eurostat

It is clear that since the run-up to the euro began, the monetary stance progressively became accommodating, and that since 1999 the critical gap remained stable at low levels. Thus, a comparison with past behaviour seems to show a monetary policy more growth friendly.

The ECB and the New Policy Regime

Limiting the assessment of ECB action to a comparison with past behaviours in Europe is not enough for at least two reasons. First, in general, evaluation should never be solely based on comparative terms; second, this is even truer when there is a regime change. Standard textbook analysis routinely separates the study of small open economies, facing external constraints, from the study of large economies. It is no doubt that with the Euro, the model of reference for Europe became the latter, reducing the constraints facing monetary policy, but at the same time increasing its responsibility. How did the ECB behave, faced with this new responsibility?

The First Years

The relatively short period since the European Central Bank came into existence was characterized by a number of important challenges for the authorities in charge with European economic policy management: the end of the internet bubble, the Afghan and Iraqi wars, the terror attacks of September 11, the droughts and the agricultural prices fluctuations, the animal diseases, the oil price fluctuations. The first three years of operation of the ECB were the object of a previous briefing paper (BP 1-2003, February1 ). The Bank was reactive to factors that directly affected inflation; thus, it was quite active in the years 1999-2000, in response to shocks in oil and food prices, and in trying to contrast the depreciation of the euro. On the other hand, it showed more inertia in reacting to shocks that firstly had an impact on income and employment, and only through that channel on prices: facing the US slowdown of 2001, and its consequences on output in the euro zone, it did react only slowly and under exceptional circumstances (notably the 9/11 events). In a sentence, the ECB strictly followed its main objective (price stability), but much less so its secondary one, the promotion of economic growth. While this behaviour could be justified by the institutional tasks of the ECB, it also showed two important problems with such a state of affairs. First, the objective of price stability was pushed too far, even when it was becoming evident to most observers that a cut in rates to sustain growth would not hamper the inflation objective of the ECB. Secondly, the excessive focus on inflation, unveiled an insufficiently forward looking attitude, as the future disinflationary effects of the slowdown were not taken into consideration. The briefing paper concluded by arguing that if the restrictiveness of the Bank's behaviour had to be explained by the attempt to establish a reputation, that attempt had not been entirely successful.

The Period 2002Period -2004 What are the main events that characterized the past two years, and against which we need to assess the conduct of monetary policy in the euro zone? We can enumerate three of them.

(i) The prolonged stagnation of the European economy. Figure 2 compares the growth performances of the US and of the Euro zone in the past few years. It clearly shows that, though deeper than in Europe, the recession on the other side of the Atlantic was very short lived, and followed by a growth recovery as soon as 2002, and impetuous growth in the two years [2003][2004]. Europe, on the other hand, experienced a prolonged period of disappointing growth, with the three largest economies de facto stagnating. In spite of sluggish growth, since the first quarter of 2001, the ECB refinancing rate was always higher than the Fed Funds Rate, and the gap was closed only late in 2004, following the gradual rate increase in the United States.

Q 3 9 9 Q 1 0 0 Q 3 0 0 Q 1 0 1 Q 3 0 1 Q 1 0 2 Q 3 0 2 Q 1 0 3 Q 3 0 3 Q 1 0 4 Q 3 0 4 % US Growth

(ii) The stabilization of inflation

The second remarkable fact of the last two years is the stabilization of inflation. After the shocks of the years 1999-2001, inflation in Euroland fluctuated around 2%, the level targeted by the ECB (see figure 3). In fact, since April 2002, it oscillated between a minimum of 1.7% and a maximum of 2.4%. Much of this variation was furthermore due to the sharp increase of oil prices. If we consider core inflation, its level has been constantly below 2% since January 2003. 0 5 / 9 9 0 9 / 9 9 0 1 / 0 0 0 5 / 0 0 0 9 / 0 0 0 1 / 0 1 0 5 / 0 1 0 9 / 0 1 0 1 / 0 2 0 5 / 0 2 0 9 / 0 2 0 1 / 0 3 0 5 / 0 3 0 9 / 0 3 0 1 / 0 4 0 5 / 0 4 0 9 / 0 4 0 1 / 0 5 5 0 1 / 9 9 0 5 / 9 9 0 9 / 9 9 0 1 / 0 0 0 5 / 0 0 0 9 / 0 0 0 1 / 0 1 0 5 / 0 1 0 9 / 0 1 0 1 / 0 2 0 5 / 0 2 0 9 / 0 2 0 1 / 0 3 0 5 / 0 3 0 9 / 0 3 0 1 / 0 4 0 5 / 0 4 0 9 / 0 4 0 1 / 0 5 % 0.8 0.9

1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 $/€ ECB Refinancing Rate $/€ Source: ECB (ii)
The spectacular depreciation of the dollar Since its minimum value (0.84 dollars for an euro) in July 2001, the exchange ratio between the US dollar and the euro has climbed almost 60% to its current level of around 1.30 (see figure 4). In the years 2003-04 the dollar depreciated by 35%. The euro also appreciated with respect to the currencies pegged to the dollar, in particular the Chinese Yuan. With some notable exceptions, European exports suffered from this exchange rate dynamics.

The ECB Inertia in a Changing World

The pattern that was appearing towards the end of 2001 -an extreme cautiousness of the ECB -has been confirmed by the policy followed since then. After the drop following the terror attacks, the main refinancing rate was left unchanged at 3.25% from November 2001 to November 2002. Then, over the following semester it was brought down to 2%, and since then (June 2003), it has been left unchanged. One could argue that this conduct was appropriate, given that the inflation rate was more or less regularly around its target level, and that the statutory mandate of the ECB is to maintain price stability.

Nevertheless, if we broaden the perspective, we obtain a somewhat different picture, in which the inertia of the ECB is harder to justify. Figure 5 exhibits the Monetary Conditions Indicator (MCI), built by OFCE (see box 1 for details on how the index is constructed). This indicator gives a synthetic measure of monetary policy tightness. It embeds both interest rates and the exchange rate; as such it is well suited to capture the remarkable appreciation of the euro. We can see that since 2002 monetary conditions have strongly loosened in the US, thanks to the strong depreciation of the dollar; not even the gradual tightening of monetary policy, over the past few months, has changed the trend. In Europe, over the same time span, the indicator of monetary conditions has been constantly tightening, mainly because of the euro appreciation that was not contrasted by an aggressive monetary stance. In other words, the combination of interest rates and the effective exchange rate is tighter today than it was in 1999, a period of higher growth.

Box 1. The Monetary Conditions Indicator (MCI)

The MCI is aimed at giving a synthetic measure of the financial constraint faced by an economy. First it considers the deviation of real interest rates from the rate of growth (the "critical gap"), that affects the economy mainly through the investment function and the cost of credit. The second element is the effective real exchange rate, that represents an indicator of competitiveness.

The real interest rate variable is an average of the short term rate, determined by monetary policy, and the long term rate determined by the markets. By taking the critical gap, we obtain a relative measure that allows comparisons across countries. Comparability across countries is also the reason why the exchange rate variable is taken as a deviation from its 10 years average. Finally, the weights come from the macroeconomic model OFCE uses for its forecasts: 1 for the interest rate, and 0.2 for the effective exchange rate.

Q 1 9 9 Q 3 9 9 Q 1 0 0 Q 3 0 0 Q 1 0 1 Q 3 0 1 Q 1 0 2 Q 3 0 2 Q 1 0 3 Q 3 0 3 Q 1 0 4 Q 3 0 4 Q199 = 100
Euro zone

US

Source: OFCE

The second reason that calls for an in depth analysis of monetary policy is the inflation target per se. If it is true that inflation has been fluctuating around 2% in the past two years, justifying the stability of ECB rates with respect to its target, it is also true that precisely the decision of the ECB to set the target rate at 2% may be seen as the "original sin" of monetary policy in the Euro zone. In fact, the period of low inflation that preceded the inception of the single currency has created an historical anchor that in view of the following events proved to be too low, and hence induced a restrictive bias in monetary policy. I argued elsewhere2 that a correct target rate for inflation should be 2.5% or 3%.

Fit for the New Role?

The preceding analysis gives a mixed picture of the ECB action. On one side, the bank showed more responsiveness to current economic conditions than the central banks of individual countries of the euro zone over the 1990s. On the other hand, though, the ECB policy did not prove to be completely adequate to the new regime introduced by the euro. Even if it can't be said that monetary policy was procyclical, it is quite evident that the overall monetary stance in the past few years was not supportive of growth. The bank did not seem able to meet the challenge posed on one side by its new capacity to influence global variables like the exchange rate, and on the other by the constraints on fiscal policy in the EMU that leave monetary policy as the only union-wide tool to sustain growth and income. It is not by chance that the other "large open economy", the US, statutory imposes growth as an objective for its central bank. The anomaly of the ECB statute, an exclusive focus on inflation, may be seen as a "small country" legacy and should be corrected. The European Constitutional Treaty is a missed opportunity in this sense.

The inertia of the ECB, compared with the activism and the pre-emptive moves of the Fed may have two different explanations; one could think that the ECB correctly focused on inflation, and hence that its limited activism reflects the good accomplishment of its mission. Or, one could conclude, at the opposite, that the ECB has been unable to base its policy on anticipation of future events, as the Fed does, and that its inertia derives from a backward looking attitude (a "feedback policy"), unfit to the leading role monetary policy has to have in a currency union of such a big size.

Figure

  Figure 1. Eurozone The Critical Gap

Figure

  Figure 2. Real GDP and Central Bank Rates

Figure

  Figure 3. Inflation and ECB Rates

Figure

  Figure 4. $/€ Exchange Rate and ECB Rates

Figure

  Figure 5. Monetary Conditions Indicator

http://www.europarl.eu.int/comparl/econ/pdf/emu/speeches/20030217/fitoussi.pdf

Fitoussi, J.-P., La Règle Et Le Choix. Paris, La république des idées,Seuil, 2002.


There are various factors affecting one's conjecture about the future of the world economy. One is the "objective" content of current evolution as it is reflected by economic indicators (the second pillar, to speak in the language of the ECB); another is the increased degree of uncertainty which has followed September 11. Unfortunately the macroeconomics of political uncertainty is not a well developed field in economics.

On the first factor evidence is mixed. All over the world, economists are currently revising downward their growth forecast for the global economy and especially for the US, Japan and Europe. The most shared view is that the "recovery" is and will continue to be softer than expected.

The US economy

In this context the scenario of a double dip in the US is gaining voices as stock values continue to recede and household moral seems to become hesitant.

The story goes as follows. The first dip was the consequence of past overinvestment which led in 2001 to an abrupt and deep decline in investment.

Notice that a recession caused by overinvestment should resemble more the pre WW2 business cycle, and thus be deeper, than the ones which typically since WW2 are caused by an acceleration in the inflation rate. All that served to sustain interest sensitive consumption, and especially purchase of motor vehicles and residential investment. Low interest rates on mortgages helped to sustain the robustness of the level of activity in the sector and home prices which have continued to move up strongly. The consequent increase in home prices helped to mitigate the effect of the destruction of several trillions of equity wealth on household net wealth.

But the gulf between the increase of private consumption and the decrease of private investment cannot continue for ever, and the moment of truth has to come. As the gulf will not be closed by an increase in businesses investmentbusinesses seem unwilling to expand capacity, increase capital equipment investment or increase headcount -household consumption has to recede. In fact the sharp decline of the financial market is now damaging the economy as it leads to a desire of consumers to save -the saving rate has already increase from 1.5% in 2001 to 3% in 2002 -and limits the willingness of firms to invest. In addition, borrowing costs have increased sharply for most companies, and others are credit rationed. If one adds that no new tax cut will happen before January 2004, and that consumer confidence is falling again, the case for a double dip seems convincing, the more convincing indeed, if we consider that the "corporate governance shock" and the prospect of a war with Iraq cumulate a mounting economic uncertainty with a mounting political uncertainty.

But the case for a double dip is not so strong when confronted with current evolution. It is true that the second quarter GDP growth has been a meagre 1.1%, but what we know about the third quarter lead to expect a growth of about 3.5% and even if GDP growth is expected to be much lower in the forth quarter, the yearly growth rate for 2OO2 will be about 2.4% at least. Inventories are now so lean in relation to sales that production has to accelerate for the next several months. On the other hand, even if growing, unemployment remains moderate by historical standards. For both reasons the moderation in the growth of wage and salary disbursement may come to an end, especially because the productivity acceleration remains important (even if data revision has lowered productivity growth estimate since 1998). Finally, the consequence of past overinvestment in NICT has not to be exaggerated in view of the rapid obsolescence of the goods incorporating these new technologies.

The euro-area economy

The euro area seems to replicate in an attenuated way the evolution of the US economy. Here we should not perhaps speak of a double dip but a double slowdown of growth. Investment is down, less sharply than in the US, but household consumption exhibit still positive figures, save for the first quarter 2002 where it was modestly negative (-O.2%). The corporate governance shock has been almost absent, but stock prices have fallen by 50% from their pick level in 2000. Nevertheless direct equity holdings of households are still not as widely distributed in the euro area as in the United States. This is why, according to rough estimations, the marginal propensity to consume out of equity wealth is much lower in the euro area than in the US (Cf. ECB monthly bulletin, September 2002). Residential investment seems to resist, and home prices to be up. But still the prospect for future growth are weak: 1% in 2002; 1.6% for 2003 according to latest estimations. That means that unemployment will continue to increase, and most probably at a faster pace than in the 12 last months. The non nil probability of a double dip in the US will almost certainly obscure the outlook, absent policy reactions in Europe. The US economy is already no more a centre of external demand addressed to the rest of the world, and the euro appreciation, mild as it were until now, may become stronger in the case of a double dip.

The ECB and Macroeconomic Policies

When comparing the US and the euro area economies, one is lead to an obvious question: why have public policies been so passive in the euro area? After all the private sector functioned rather well in Europe as compared with the US, and a modicum of expansionary policy would have done a good job.

The recession in the US and the uncertainty surrounding its growth prospect, would anyway have called for a revision of economic policy as it changed the relative weights of internal and external demand. Europe cannot just wait for the wind to blow and should activate its own wind machine. Since November 2001 -which is the date of the last cut in interest rates by the ECB -the expectations of growth have been revised downward in a quasi continuous way. The ECB itself recognise that: "The acceleration of economic activity to growth rates in line with those of potential growth is now expected in the course of 2003 rather than by the end of this year. This delay broadly corresponds with the change in the world economic outlook.." (ECB, Monthly Bulletin, September 2002, P.5). At the same time the rate of inflation has decreased from 2.5% in 2001 to a figure of about 2% since the month of may.

How can these changes be without effect on monetary policy? What is worrying is that in Europe we consider a 2% rate of inflation as dangerously close to the ECB's upper limit, whereas in the US such a rate is considered low and associated with a slack. It has to be emphasised that core inflation rates are almost identical in both sides of the Atlantic. Both the ECB and the FED decided at their last meeting (respectively the 12 and the 24 of September) to leave their interest rates unchanged (respectively 3.25% and 1.75%), but the motivation of the decisions where rather different: "the risks to price stability appear to be rather balanced and ..the current level of interest rates is therefore appropriate to maintain price stability over the medium run", says the ECB. On the contrary, the Federal Open Market committee considers that "the risks are weighted mainly towards conditions that may generate economic weakness", statement which lead to the expectation of a further decline in the interest rates.

What this makes clear is that whatever rule the ECB is following, it should have lead to a change in interest rates as the expectations of future inflation and growth have markedly changed say between January and July 2002. Most economists think that the cut should have been of 75 basic points, and that a cut of 25 points would serve no purpose. Hence a move of 50 basis points should be the minimum than one can expect. With a wait and see approach to monetary policy and with a fiscal policy conditional to the fate of the rate of growth -one hears strange statements according to which governments should delay planned decrease in taxes because growth is lower than expected! -it is no wonder that internal demand cannot easily rebound. Attempts at measuring the output gap are more complex, as the measure depends of the year taken as a reference. Table 2 try to give some insights, in selecting various reference years. It clearly appears that whatever the reference year, the output gap in Europe is sizeable, contrary to the US. It has to be emphasised that both tables give very conservative estimates of the output gap, as the data used are from OECD, which has lower estimates of potential growth than most others institutes. On the other hand, the graph below shows that the rate of capacity utilisation is much higher in Europe than in the US (overinvestment was much less of a reality in the euro area). But it is clear that both rates have decreased, and that in Europe the degree of slack in the economy could be usefully combated by a more aggressive monetary policy.

  It takes time to get rid of excess capacity, especially because bad loans will lengthen the convalescence of the private sector. But contrary to what one would have expected consumption did not follow the path of investment. So the recession was one of the mildest of US economic history: three quarters of negative growth in 2001 followed by a strong recovery in the first quarter 2002, at a rate of about 5% (annual rate). But, the story goes, the robustness of consumption spending is artificial and will sooner or later fade away. US capitalism has been

	emerged in aggregate demand"; and indeed from the beginning of 2001 the
	interest rate has been cut eleven times, to reach 1,75%. On top of that tax cuts,
	investment subsidies, the decrease in the inflation rate, all helped to increase
	disposable personal income. Real disposable income increased at an annual
	rate of 8% between the fourth quarter of 2001 and May 2002. The budgetary
	surplus, which was 207 billions dollars in 2000 turned to a deficit of
	approximately the same size (186 billions dollars).

put under an oxygen tent, as Shumpeter would have said, through one of the most expansionary policy mix of US history. One can read in the "Monetary Policy Report to the Congress" of the FED ( 16 July 2002), " the federal reserve had moved aggressively in 2001 to counter the weakness that had

Table 1

 1 below attempt to measure the slack in demand in both sides of the Atlantic. The difference between potential and actual growth has been respectively of .9% in 2001, 1.4% in 2002 and is expected to be of about 1% in 2003. Notice that this difference is expected to be much lower in the US for2002 and 2003.

Table 1 . Excess of GDP growth over potential growth in the Euro area and in the US

 1

	EURO area	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
	GDP growth, market prices	4,8%	1,4%	-0,9%	2,3%	2,3%	1,4%	2,3%	2,9%	2,7%	3,5%	1,6%	1,0%	1,6%
	Potential growth of total economy, volume	5,6%	2,5%	2,0%	1,8%	1,8%	2,0%	2,1%	2,2%	2,2%	2,3%	2,4%	2,4%	2,4%
	Excess		-1,1%	-2,9%	0,5%	0,4%	-0,6%	0,2%	0,6%	0,4%	1,2%	-0,9%	-1,4%	-0,8%
	Labour force	9,0%	0,0%	0,0%	0,5%	0,3%	0,8%	0,9%	1,2%	1,1%	1,2%	0,8%	0,7%	0,9%
	Unemployment	7,8%	8,7% 10,3% 11,0% 10,7% 10,9% 11,0% 10,3%	9,5%	8,5%	8,0%	8,2%	8,1%
	USA	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
	GDP growth product, market prices	-0,5%	3,1%	2,7%	4,0%	2,7%	3,6%	4,4%	4,3%	4,1%	4,1%	1,2%	2,5%	2,8%
	Potential growth of total economy, volume	2,6%	2,4%	2,7%	2,7%	2,9%	3,2%	3,7%	3,7%	3,8%	3,7%	3,4%	3,0%	3,1%
	Excess		0,7%	0,0%	1,3%	-0,2%	0,4%	0,8%	0,6%	0,3%	0,4%	-2,2%	-0,5%	-0,3%
	Labour force	0,4%	1,4%	0,8%	1,4%	1,0%	1,2%	1,8%	1,0%	1,2%	1,1%	0,7%	0,4%	1,1%
	Unemployment	6,8%	7,5%	6,9%	6,1%	5,6%	5,4%	4,9%	4,5%	4,2%	4,0%	4,8%	5,6%	5,3%

Table 2 . Output gaps, Euro area and US

 2

	Potential productivity		2,5%	2,1%	1,4%	1,6%	1,2%	1,2%	1,0%	1,1%	1,1%	1,6%	1,7%	1,4%
	Output gap	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
		100,0	98,9	96,0	96,5	96,9	96,3	96,5	97,2	97,6	98,7	97,9	96,5	95,8 1991
			100,0	97,1	97,6	98,0	97,4	97,6	98,2	98,7	99,8	99,0	97,6	96,8 1992
				100,0	100,5	100,9	100,3	100,5	101,2	101,6	102,8	101,9	100,5	99,7 1993
					100,0	100,4	99,8	100,0	100,7	101,1	102,3	101,4	100,0	99,2 1994
						100,0	99,4	99,6	100,3	100,7	101,9	101,0	99,6	98,8 1995
							100,0	100,2	100,9	101,3	102,5	101,6	100,2	99,4 1996
								100,0	100,6	101,1	102,3	101,4	99,9	99,2 1997
									100,0	100,4	101,6	100,7	99,3	98,6 1998
									100,0	100,4	101,6	100,7	99,3	98,6 1999
										100,0	101,2	100,3	98,9	98,1 2000
											100,0	99,1	97,7	97,0 2001
	Potential productivity		1,0%	1,8%	1,3%	1,9%	1,9%	1,9%	2,6%	2,6%	2,7%	2,7%	2,6%	2,0%
	Output gap	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
		100,0	100,7	100,7	102,0	101,7	102,1	102,9	103,6	103,9	104,3	102,0	101,5	101,2 1991
			100,0	100,0	101,3	101,1	101,5	102,3	102,9	103,2	103,6	101,3	100,9	100,5 1992
				100,0	101,3	101,1	101,5	102,3	102,9	103,2	103,6	101,3	100,9	100,5 1993
					100,0	99,8	100,2	100,9	101,6	101,9	102,3	100,0	99,6	99,2 1994
						100,0	100,4	101,2	101,8	102,1	102,5	100,2	99,8	99,4 1995
							100,0	100,8	101,4	101,7	102,1	99,9	99,4	99,0 1996
								100,0	100,6	100,9	101,3	99,1	98,6	98,3 1997
									100,0	100,3	100,7	98,5	98,0	97,7 1998
									100,0	100,3	100,7	98,5	98,0	97,7 1999
										100,0	100,4	98,2	97,7	97,4 2000
											100,0	97,8	97,3	97,0 2001

Rate