LECTURE SERIES: MONETARY POLICY AND THE FINANCIAL SECTOR (MPFS) You are cordially invited to the following public lecture: *“High inflation: Fate or Failure?“ * /Stefan Gerlach // //Chief Economist, EFG Bank, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland/ Time: Friday, November 25, 2022, 10:00-12:00 a.m. Location: Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Welthandelsplatz 1, LC Building, Galerie (ground floor, behind the WU Shop) Would you please register for the event by email (Cornelia.Berger@wu.ac.at). Current record-high inflation rates have taken many central bankers by surprise. The broad-based price increases are driven by both supply- and demand-side forces. Disturbances in the global supply chains fuelled by the COVID-19 crisis as well as the weaponizing of energy supplies by Russia on the one side, and pent-up demand after the restart of the economies on the other side drive the strong price increases. Central banks are responding with unprecedented jumps in official interest rates. But are these high inflation rates „fate", the unavoidable consequence of a multitude of unpredictable shocks? Or are they the result of a „failure" of the central banks that ignored the early signs of an inflationary pick-up as „transitory" and then reacted too late? What does this mean for the path of reduction of inflation towards the target values? Stefan Gerlach is Chief Economist at EFG Bank in Zurich. He served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland in 2011-2015. Before that, he was Professor of Monetary Economics and Managing Director of the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability at Goethe University, Frankfurt. He was also External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Mauritius and Member of the Monetary Experts Panel of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. From 2001-2004 he served as Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The public lecture is jointly organized by Aurel Schubert, Honorary Professor at WU Vienna and former Director General Statistics, ECB and by Guido Schäfer, Department of Economics, WU Vienna. ------------ Guido Schäfer Department of Economics, WU Vienna Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria Tel.: + 431 31336 4579 Email: Guido.Schaefer@wu.ac.at