In a speech 'How should policymakers deal with low-probability, high-impact events?' given at the ECB's Conference on Monetary Policy and Imperfect Knowledge on 15 October, Donald Kohn of the Federal Reserve said central banks with credibility for keeping inflation low and that are not burdened with targets for inflation, exchange rates or money supply have more opportunities to protect economies from unforeseen problems.

"I judge our policy in these cases to have been successful -- though the