Articles by Central Banking Newsdesk
US flip flops on cutting Fed’s oversight role
Senate committee is set to take all but the 23 biggest banks out of Fed’s regulatory ambit, diluted proposal will see Fed hang on to more of its responsibilities than reform bill initially said
Weber signals ECB could relax debt rules
Comments come after Austrian governor deemed power of rating agencies unacceptable; paves way for ECB to accept Greek debt even if downgraded
Fund economist: Lost Decade shows need for higher inflation targets
IMF economist Daniel Leigh points to evidence from Japan’s Lost Decade that shows hiking targets would have shorn output losses
ECB names new statistics head
European Central Bank says Aurel Schubert of the Austrian central bank will be the new chief of its statistics directorate
DSK on Africa’s economic transformation
International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn describes the Road Ahead for Africa at the Kenya International Conference Centre in Nairobi
Credit channel working in Korea
Bank of Korea paper uses data from Korean firms to build on academic research on credit channels
Regional Feds blame weather for slow recovery
Harsh weather conditions across the United States east coast in February dampened growth
Israel held on low inflation figure
Minutes show Bank of Israel’s Stanley Fischer opted to leave the interest rate for March unchanged at 1.25% as CPI inflation remained low for a successive month
Noyer to chair BIS board
Banque de France governor succeeds Guillermo Ortiz as chairman of Bank for International Settlements’ board
Gudmundsson confident of Icesave deal despite country’s ‘no’ vote
Icelandic central bank governor Már Gudmundsson says a resolution will be reached with British and Dutch governments soon despite massive wave of public opposition to the plan
Volcker lambasts higher inflation targets
Former Fed chairman Paul Volcker calls the suggestion that inflation targets should be raised to about 4% “nonsense”; points to the difficulties of the 1980s
More men than women lost jobs in crisis: NY Fed paper
New York Fed paper finds that the unemployment gender gap widened in the recession, partly due to higher numbers of men re-entering labour force rather than waiting out the slump
IMF deputy on drivers of the Asian recovery
International Monetary Fund first deputy managing director Murillo Portugal says Australia has done well as a result of Chinese commodity demand, but must watch out for a cooling off
Hildebrand, Weber condemn calls for higher inflation targets
Swiss and German central bank heads label IMF chief economist’s argument “seriously flawed”; deem timing “highly unfortunate”
Bangladesh’s Rahman welcomes remittance improvements
Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman says banks, microfinance companies and IT specialists should continue working together to increase access to finance
Bank begins consultation on note circulation
Bank of England in talks with commercial cash industry on proposal to better distribute lowest denomination note
Bank of Japan Review – Measuring potential growth in Japan
Bank of Japan review notes difficulties with various methods used to forecast growth, says potential shortcoming should be at the fore of policymakers’ minds
ECB surplus drops more than 16%
European Central Bank reports a €2.218 billion surplus, and a €2.25 billion profit, pinning fall in interest income to low rates on dollar assets
Norway’s wealth fund smashes profit record
Norway’s Government Pension Fund–Global sees a 25.6% return on its investments for 2009, trumping the benchmark portfolio by more than four percentage points
Longworth praises Canada’s astute liquidity management
Bank of Canada deputy governor David Longworth says central bank has been thoughtful and measured, assuring markets that support is available but ensuring that it is only used in dire circumstances
Banks’ profits plunged 40%: Greece deputy
Bank of Greece deputy governor Eleni Dendrinou-Louri says profits fell more than 40%, accompanied by a disconcerting rise in trading income
Bank of Estonia – Economic Policy Statement
Estonian central bank pins fledgling recovery to a pick-up in export sector, labour market remains weak
Swiss stabfund losses wipe out UBS equity
Revaluation wipes more than $5.6 billion off the value of SNB’s toxic-asset portfolio
An improved model for predicting direct investment equity income
Paper from the Danish central bank finds that combining past profitability and change in expected consumption growth provides a better forecast