By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said Tuesday that the judgment incorporated into ECB staff projections was not arbitrary and generally helped steer the forecasts in the right direction.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the ECB International Research Forum on Monetary Policy in Frankfurt, Lane said it was “inescapable” that the ECB use the market interest rate curve as an input in staff projections.

Beyond feeding data into models, the ECB also needed to develop a coherent narrative around its projections, Lane said, describing this as the judgment element supplied by staff.

“Judgment at the ECB tends to be in the right direction,” he said. “It’s not random, and that’s very important.”