This work presents the evolution of central bank statistics over the last 25 years. We first describe the work aimed at satisfying the information needs for common monetary policy, leading to a brand new set of harmonized monetary and financial statistics. We then focus on the most significant developments caused by the financial crisis and by the institutional changes that accompanied it. The final part looks at the challenges lying ahead, namely how to deal with digitalization and globalization.
This work provides a comprehensive overview of the giant leap made by European central bank statistics over the last quarter of a century, showing the challenges and progress in harmonization in the main statistical domains. While this work has already provided a good base for analysis during the great financial crisis, the crisis and the resulting institutional changes led to new requests for data, both in a European and a global context, which resulted in a new effort to produce even more detailed data.
