Opinion
Greenspan moved markets less
According to the article 'Greenspan moved markets less as Poole, Kohn gained influence' published Wednesday, new research shows former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's speeches moved the bond market less in 2005 than in prior years as William…
DAS: Why is CBN fooling Nigerians?
According to this article published on Monday 27 February , the various exchange rate mechanisms whether christened FEM, IFEM, AFEM, or DAS, could never claim to be truly market determined and have all without exception, eventually led to the…
West's gold vanishing in China once again
China will soon release statistics showing that it has passed Japan as the biggest holder of foreign currency the world has ever seen, according to this article published on Sunday 26 February.
Comment: ECB continues to tighten
As expected the European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday raised eurozone interest rates by another 25 basis points, taking them to 2.5%. With the markets pricing in two further 25 basis point hikes this year, attention now turns to whether ECB president,…
Comment: Presidential Fed nominations
When George W. Bush announces his nomination to replace departing vice chairman, Roger Ferguson, he will have chosen all seven members of the board of governors at the Fed. In doing so, he will join Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt as the only…
Bush's Board
George W. Bush is only the third president to appoint all seven members of the Board of Governors, notes this article published Monday. But how does he compare to his predecessors in terms of overall influence on the makeup of Fed leadership?
Bundesbank fights to shine in ECB's shadow
Germany's Bundesbank is battling to redefine its role in the new eurozone monetary order headed by the European Central Bank, according to this article published Friday.
Comment: The ECB's 'structural flaw'
In a lecture at the London School of Economics this week, Charles Goodhart suggested that the criticism directed towards the ECB by politicians, is the result of a "structural flaw" in the way the central bank's inflation objective was defined.
Want to save the euro? Bring back 12 currencies
According to this article published on Monday 27 February, reissuing the 12 national currencies that were replaced with the euro may be the only way to salvage something from an experiment that looks more like a failure with every month that passes.
Bank of Korea's tarnished image
According to this recent editorial, the Bank of Korea has dealt a staggering blow to its image as the issuer of legal tender by deciding to send 160,000 banknotes in its possession back to the print shop because they are suspected of printing defects.
Comment: 'A matter for the BoJ'
Comments made by influential Japanese politicians over the weekend and on Monday suggest that the government will no longer stand in the Bank of Japan's way as it departs from its super-loose policy of "quantitative easing".
Fed's loss is Bernanke's gain
According to this article published Thursday 23 February, with Vice-Chairman Roger W. Ferguson Jr., a Democrat, out of the way, the new Federal Reserve chairman can now dominate the inflation debate.
Comment: Zimbabwe's mystery repayment
Two weeks ago the Zimbabwean government managed to avoid expulsion from the IMF by paying off a large chunk of its debt to the Fund. However, the source of the forex-depleted government's finances remains a mystery.
Resistance waning to BOJ ending hyper-easy policy
According to this article published Tuesday 21 February, resistance by the government and senior members of the ruling party towards the Bank of Japan ending its five-year-old hyper-loose monetary policy seems to be waning.
Bending the yield curve to fit current fashion
This article published on Tuesday 21 February looks at the refusal of long- term interest rates to follow short-term rates higher when the Fed began raising rates in June 2004.
Comment: Ferguson bids Fed farewell
The vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Roger Ferguson, will retire in two months time and he will not attend the Fed's next rate-setting meeting on March 27-28. Ferguson's departure underscores the idea of a Fed in flux.
Reservations about reserves
According to this article published on Sunday19 February, a race is unfolding in Asia involving currency reserves. The favourite in this game of monetary one-upmanship is China, it says.
Comment: Transparency and institutions
One of the most striking transformations in central banking over the last twenty years has been the idea that central banks should be transparent in their conduct of policy. While it is fair to say that the benefits of transparency have become …
Comment: Sepa progress report
In its fourth progress report on the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) the ECB says it "expects the European Payments Council (EPC) to take overall responsibility for defining and implementing a monitoring framework for each phase of the migration process…
Comment: Bundesbank stands firm
Leading members of the German parliament are very upset about the refusal of the Bundesbank even to talk about the sale of its gold reserves. In what is turning into a litmus test of its independence, the German central bank has, thus far, stood firm.
Next Bank of Spain chief will face higher rates
According to this article published on Thursday 16 February, when a new governor replaces Jaime Caruana as head of the Bank of Spain later this year, their biggest challenge will be to manage the change of the economic cycle.
Comment: Payment system risks
While few would regard Britain's large-value payment system as risky - over its ten-year life, the system has suffered no major scares - how the system will bear up in a crisis or time of market stress is a cause for concern.
New Fed chief meets same old Congress
In terms of the testimony itself, the transition from Greenspan to Bernanke was seamless, according to this article published on Thursday 17 February. But he did it in language that Congress and the larger audience - financial markets - could understand,…
Comment: Inflation targetting
A number of emerging market economies have encountered problems in the early stages of inflation targetting. The latest to hit some bumps in the road in is the National Bank of Romania.