Opinion
Comment: Weber reveals his monetary policy stance
Axel Weber set out his thinking on the role of monetary policy and interest rates in three recent speeches. This article explores his views.
Central banks should close the governance gap
Central banks seem reluctant to adopt private-sector “best practice” in governance, but there are benefits in doing so says Jeremy Foster
Comment:Government debt offices gear up for change
Government debt offices play a vital role in managing the cost and risk of government borrowing and in the development of the domestic financial system, but they are frequently overlooked. A recent survey looks at the trends towards concentrated…
Comment: Unravelling the RBA hike
The Reserve Bank of Australia has joined the world's leading central banks in tightening mode. Last week's rate rise was largely unexpected and opinion is split over how far the central bank will go in hiking rates this year.
Comment: Trichet sounds his warning
After having made it clear that an interest rate increase was highly unlikely, the ECB's monetary policy meeting this week was all about how to signal future rate hikes pencilled in for later this year. Jean-Claude Trichet's message yesterday, 3 May, was…
Comment: Global impacts of US monetary policy
A recent ECB working paper finds that emerging markets stock markets returns can be reduced by more than 10% in response to a 100 basis point increase in US monetary policy rates. On average global equity markets fall by 3.8%.
Comment: Bernanke slips up
Ben Bernanke has had to learn very fast indeed. An alleged "off the record" remark has triggered a frenzy in financial markets.
Comment: April in review
April was a particularly eventful month for the International Monetary Fund. The Fund concluded it "spring meeting" in Washington and published new editions of the Global Financial Stability Report and the World Economic Outlook.
Comment: 'Surprise' rate hike in China
The People's Bank of China yesterday raised its benchmark one-year lending rate to 5.85% from 5.58%. The move surprised analysts who had expected the authorities to stick to a combination of administrative measures and higher reserve requirements for…
Comments: Reserve diversification
Recent reports of the diversification official foreign exchange reserves in the Middle East have not gone unnoticed. Economists are starting to ask if the prospect of large-scale reserve diversification is back on the international agenda, following a…
Comment: Will the Fund's new approach matter?
Stephen Roach, managing director and chief economist of Morgan Stanley, suggests that the renewed debate on the role of the international financial institutions is missing questions that "should be near the top of the global agenda".
Comment: A 'new multilateral approach'
The weekend's announcement of an enhanced IMF role in "multilateral surveillance and consultation" is an important conceptual shift in the way the Fund operates. It is also the closest leading economic leaders have come to acknowledging that global…
Comment: Sweden sheds reserve dollars
The Swedish Riksbank dropped a bit of a bombshell on international currency markets on Friday 21 April by announcing a significant reduction in the share of dollars and yen in its foreign reserves portfolio. Although Sweden has a relatively small…
Comment: Transparent monetary policy
The "transparency revolution" in modern monetary policy is little over a decade old. Just recently, some commentators have started to ask whether this development can go too far. Although it certainly could in theory, it probably hasn't yet.
Comment: IMF reform checklist
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday 19 April released its latest World Economic Outlook. Its central projection sees global growth at 4.75 percent in 2006 and 2007. The distribution of risks, however, is increasingly slanted to the downside.
Comment: New governor for CBRT
The appointment of Durmus Yilmaz as governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey brings to an end weeks of turmoil as the government struggled to find a successor to the inflation-busting Sureyya Serdengecti.
Comment: BCCI case 'a farce'
According to the presiding judge, the case brought against the Bank of England by Deloitte, liquidators for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), was "a farce" which "had the capacity to damage the reputation of [the British] legal system…
Comment: The IMF's Global FSR
The IMF yesterday unveiled its latest Global Financial Stability Report at the Bank of England head office in London. "The near-term outlook is as good as it gets," Gerd Hausler, director of the IMF's capital markets unit, said at the press conference.
Comment: Sparks continue to fly in Poland
Sparks continue to fly between the president of the National Bank of Poland, Leszek Balcerowicz, and the ruling Law and Justice Party. While a controversial bank merger, which the government tried to block, has now been approved, tension remains high as…
Comment: The IMF's challenge
Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's economic counsellor and director of research, said in a speech Monday 10 April at the Kiel Institute that "as the reserves of advanced emerging markets fall, they may well want to re-engage with the Fund". Behind these remarks…
Comment: The US housing puzzle
A new NBER working paper finds that there is "little evidence" of housing bubbles in the US. The authors argue that even in the highest-price cities, housing is perhaps only slightly more expensive than average.
Comment: Exposed currencies cause jitters
The Central Bank of Iceland raised interest rates by 75 basis points last week. The central bank is concerned over the possibility of further declines in the Icelandic krona, which has fallen 12% against the US dollar this year.
Comment: Developments in March
March was an eventful month in central banking circles. The Bank of Japan put an end to its "quantitative easing" policy and attention now turns to the timing of its first interest rate increase.