Monetary Policy
US Fed scare proves to be a false alarm
US - Staff at the Washington headquarters of the US Federal Reserve have been allowed back into their offices after an earlier bomb scare proved to be a false alarm.
Brazil maintains steady interest rates
BRAZIL - Brazil's central bank yesterday maintained its prime interest rate at 18.5 per cent for the third consecutive month after recent market turmoil began fuelling inflation fears.
ECB Press Release
PRESS RELEASE - Schedules for the meetings of the Governing Council and the General Council of the ECB and the related press conferences in 2003, 20 June.
Vision not aggression says Polish c bank chief
POLAND - "There is no conflict between the Polish central bank and the government when it comes to real economic issues. What we see is the government's aggression against an independent state institution, something unheard of in the civilized world. In…
Effort made to bring Poland closer to eurozone
POLAND - The Finance Ministry and the Central Bank (NBP) have set up a joint group on the strategy of bringing the Polish economy closer to the Eurozone, which will discuss issues related to the zloty exchange rate strategy in the period of entering the…
Issing - Stability pact talk extremely detrimental
GERMANY - The debate on modifying the EU's stability pact is "extremely detrimental," said European Central Bank chief economist Otmar Issing in an interview with German weekly magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
SA Reserve Bank to learn about inflation targeting
SOUTH AFRICA - Experts from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) are to learn more about inflation targeting from their Canadian counterparts, in terms of an agreement signed in Pretoria on Wednesday.
Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee Minutes
MINUTES - Minutes from the Bank of England's MPC meeting 5 and 6 June, released 19 June. The committee acknowledged the continuing economic recovery in the United States and the euro area's modest 0.2% growth in the first quarter.
Extreme Contagion in Equity Markets
RESEARCH - IMF Working Paper by Jorge Chan-Lau, Donald Mathieson and James Yao of the International Capital Markets Department, 18 June. Their results suggest that contagion patterns differ significantly within regions with Latin America showing an…
Federal Reserve Bulletin, June 2002
REPORT - Profits and Balance Sheet Developments at U.S. Commercial Banks in 2001 William F. Bassett and Mark Carlson, released 18 June.
Speech by J Alfred Broaddus, Richmond Fed, 5 Jun
SPEECH - In a speech titled 'An Update on the Economy and Monetary Policy' Broaddus said that the outlook for the next several quarters was 'murky' but that the recovery seemed firmly in place.
Speech by U Backstrom of Sveriges Riksbank, 7 Jun
SPEECH - Backstrom said in a speech titled 'The importance of a well-functioning stock market' that in order to reduce the risk of financial market imbalances, it is important that we have a well thought-out legislative, regulatory and supervisory…
Speech by Stephen Nickell, Bank of England, 19 Jun
SPEECH - In the paper titled 'Monetary Policy Issues: Past, Present, Future' Nickell answered questions such as Has the MPC demonstrated a bias towards deflation?, and What are the challenges for the immediate future?
Interview - Luxembourg central bank's Yves Mersch
FEATURE - Luxembourg Central Bank governor Yves Mersch said the European Central Bank is awaiting hard evidence of an upturn in the euro zone's manufacturing sector before raising interest rates. In an interview with AFX News he also said the decision of…
Fraga - Single digit real interest rates feasible
BRAZIL - Central Bank Chairman Arminio Fraga said it is feasible for the next administration to achieve single-digit real interest rates, official news agency Agencia Brasil reported.
Independent NBP will consider weaker zloty
POLAND - President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who last week agreed to become a mediator between the government and the Monetary Policy Council (RPP), after meeting the latter on Tuesday, has confirmed his dedication to the independence of Poland's central…
Iran proposes change to central bank leadership
IRAN - The future of the post of Central Bank governor is still ambiguous in Iran, reports the Kayhan News website in Tehran.
Bank of Japan Working Paper 02-4
RESEARCH - The Bank of Japan has published a paper on 'Deposit Money Creation in Search Equilibrium' by Keiichiro Kobayashi in which the endogenous creation of bank credit and deposit money is modeled. The Central Limit Theorem implies that the…
Bank of Japan Working Paper 02-E-2
RESEARCH - The Bank of Japan's Financial Markets Department has produced research on 'Market Microstructure and Spread Pattern in the JASDAQ Market'. It examines empirical analyses of spread patterns for stocks listed on JASDAQ in order to ascertain the…
Bank of England Inflation Attitudes Survey May 02
SURVEY - The Bank of England has published the results to its Inflation Attitudes Survey which is conducted quarterly. An article in the summer Quarterly Bulletin, also published today, examines the trends seen in the four surveys up to and including…
Slovak central bank's intervention successful
SLOVAKIA - The National Bank of Slovakia succeeded in propping up the koruna after intervening twice on Monday to support the beleaguered currency. Dealers say that it spent between 40-60m euros in the process.
Brazil cb to wait to sell long term debt next year
BRAZIL - The Brazilian central bank is likely to wait until 2003 until it begins selling its longer-dated public debt again. Two weeks ago the government began to swap long-dated government securities for short-term debt to counter the growing reluctance…
Eurozone inflation to end yr above 2% says Caruana
SPAIN - Jaime Caruana, governor of the Banco de Espana and member of the ECB board said that inflation in the euro zone this year has been worse than expected. Although he said that it would be difficult to assess where it would head in the medium term,…
Trichet says France wont balance budget by 2004
FRANCE - Jean-Claude Trichet, the governor of the Banque de France, suggested that it is unlikely that France will manage to clean up its budget deficit by 2004 when he agreed with finance minister Francis Mer's comments that to achieve this will take…