The Italian equivalent of the English idiom, “to kill two birds with one stone”, involves catching multiple pigeons with one bean, apparently. Whatever the precise translation, Mario Draghi has certainly achieved more than one positive outcome while presiding over the ECB’s QE programme. While the official rationale for large-scale asset purchases was to return inflation closer to target, the ECB’s QE programme also conveniently compressed sovereign debt spreads between core and periphery states, creating breathing space for countries with excessive...