Monetary policy at crisis times

Working in a financial crisis environment is one of the most stressing tasks for a central banker. In order to diffuse a financial crisis, preventive policies, are of vital importance yet they cannot remove all disruptions that could lead to a crisis. Therefore, when a crisis emerges, risk management is of crucial importance. Risk management requires the utilisation of all available monetary policy instruments, as well as many unconventional instruments that would otherwise be considered as unacceptable in normal times. The paper discusses which actions a central bank should take at a down of a crisis, including the instruments from the “psychological arsenal” such as crisis PR and deposit insurance.