Tag Archives: Central Bank

The Economist speculates that central bank independence might be on its way out. The article suggests that motives for independence (i.e., Sargent/Wallace or Barro/Gordon type arguments) might be less relevant given the environment of low inflation and interest rates. See also my earlier, related blog post.

Japanese central bankers are not in an enviable position. The year-over-year growth rate of the country’s core consumer price index was -0.4 percent in May, marking the third consecutive monthly decline—and this after three years of Abenomics.   Brexit certainly hasn’t helped. The yen has strengthened from ¥121 to the dollar in February 2016 to ¥105 in late July. That’s had the effect of reducing import prices, but it has also put downward pressure on inflation. Japan economists on...

Finanz und Wirtschaft, July 20, 2016. PDF. In a perfect world, monetary and fiscal policy are coordinated. In the real world with its political frictions they are not. So much on helicopter money.

In the FT, Philip Stafford reports about a digital currency initiative by the Bank of Canada and commercial banks. It will involve issuing, transferring and settling central bank assets on a distributed ledger via a token named CAD-Coin. But: The Bank of Canada said the experiment was a proof-of-concept and confined to interbank payment systems. … “None of our experiments are to develop central-bank issued e-money‎ for use by the general public.”

In the FT, Martin Wolf discusses Mervyn King’s proposal to make the central bank a “pawnbroker for all seasons” as laid out in King’s recent book “The End of Alchemy.” Lord King offers a novel alternative. Central banks would still act as lenders of last resort. But they would no longer be forced to lend against virtually any asset, since that very possibility must create moral hazard. Instead, they would agree the terms on which they would lend against assets in a crisis, including...

In the Richmond Fed’s Econ Focus, Eric Leeper explains his views. Disparate confounding dynamics and simple policy rules: My view is that central banks have put far too many resources into understanding tiny fluctuations and too few resources into the things that actually matter. … Something like the basic Taylor rule doesn’t really serve as a useful litmus test for what policy is doing in the face of these DCDs, so it’s a little bizarre to me that a lot of central banks routinely calculate...

Finanz und Wirtschaft, April 30, 2016. PDF. Ökonomenstimme, May 6, 2016. HTML. The winners and losers of the current monetary environment are not that easy to identify. Investors holding long-term, non-indexed debt gain as unexpectedly low inflation shifts wealth from borrowers to lenders. Governments suffer from increased real debt burdens and reduced revenue due to effectively lower capital income tax rates. Policies that succeed in affecting the real exchange rate entail...

The Economist reports about initiatives by commercial and central banks that aim at adopting the blockchain technology. For commercial banks, distributed ledgers promise various advantages—but they also cause problems: Instead of having to keep track of their assets in separate databases, as financial firms do now, they can share just one. Trades can be settled almost instantly, without the need for lots of intermediaries. As a result, less capital is tied up during a transaction, reducing...

What central banks do – and how their policies diverge from one another – will continue to drive financial markets in 2016, impacting fixed income markets and creating opportunities for equity investors in places where policy is easing, according to the 2016 Investment Outlook from Credit Suisse’s Private Bank. The Federal Reserve seems almost certain to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006 in December – and, Credit Suisse believes it will raise them three more times in 2016....

Over four years our association of supporters of Austrian Economics from Switzerland, Germany and Austria and helpful hands from all over the world expressed opposition against the CHF cap in in-numerous pages. Finally the SNB agreed to the wishes of Swiss consumers and gave up the cap that effectively represented a tax on consumption and extra-profits for companies and close friends of the central bank. Swiss Inflation Watch: Swiss inflation  As monetarists & Austrians we expect Swiss...