Clément Fontan is postdoctoral fellow at the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ), Montréal. He holds a PhD in political science from the Université de Grenoble. His research focuses on the evolving role in financial markets of the European Central Bank.

What is the relation between monetary policy and inequalities in income and wealth? This paper analyses three ways in which the concern central banks show for inequalities in their official statements remains limited: it remains primarily instrumental in purpose and privileges the standard objectives of monetary policy; it plays down the causal impact monetary policy has on inequalities; and it refuses to consider that central banks should make containing inequalities part of their core mandate. The paper analyses and rejects three attempts on the part of central banks to answer these questions negatively.