The ECB is very eager to stress that the monetary transmission mechanism in some way is broken and that the policy measures needed is not quantitative easing, but measures to repair the monetary transmission mechanism.

In regard to ECB’s position I find this quote from a excellent paper – What Is a Central Bank? – by Bob Hetzel very interesting:

For example, in Japan, the argument is common that the bad debts of banks have broken the monetary transmission mechanism. The central bank can acquire assets to increase the reserves of commercial banks, but the weak capital position of banks limits their willingness to engage in additional lending. As in the real bills world, the marketplace controls the ability of the central bank to create independent changes in money that change prices.

According to the quantity theory as opposed to the real bills view, a central bank exercises its control over the public’s nominal expenditure through money (monetary base) creation. That control does not derive from the central bank’s influence over financial intermediation. A commercial bank acquires assets by making its liabilities attractive to individuals who forego consumption to hold them. In contrast, a central bank acquires assets through the ability to impose a tax (seigniorage) that comes from money creation. It imposes the tax directly on holders of cash and indirectly on holders of bank deposits to the extent that banks hold reserves against deposits.

Bob wrote the paper while he was a visiting scholar at the Bank of Japan in 2003.

It is striking how the present position of the ECB is similar to the BoJ’s position at the time Bob spend time there. Maybe the ECB should invite Bob to pay a visit?

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See also Bob’s paper Japanese Monetary Policy and Deflation.