Problems with the way ECB sizes the European economy

Mario Draghi’s quantitative easing may look like a precise business; the underlying economics are anything but.

Two recent observations by the ECB on output and employment highlight how monetary policy is far from an exact science, underlining the challenge that the institution’s president and his colleagues have started at their two-day meeting that ends today.

In evaluating their targeted strategies to boost the eurozone’s feeble inflation rate, they have to measure the economy — and that’s the trouble.