The Problem With “Green” Monetary Policy

Otmar Issing in this Proj Synd piece says there is no thing as Green monetary policy: Although there is increasing support for the idea that central banks should actively contribute to the fight against climate change, monetary policymakers have no mandate to do so, and for good reason. Tackling climate change is – and must remain – the responsibility of elected governments and parliaments. Further: the growing public demand that central...

Is Job Switching on the Decline?

« Private and Central Bank Digital Currencies | Main Here's a puzzle. Unemployment is at a historically low level, yet nominal wage growth is not even back to prerecession levels (see, for example, the Atlanta Fed's own Wage Growth Tracker). Why ...

Bank of Canada Governor Stephen S. Poloz to step down in June 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Available as: PDF The Board of Directors of the Bank of Canada announced today that Governor Stephen S. Poloz has informed them that he will not seek a second term as Governor when his seven-year...

Basel III monitoring data for external research: usage policy

Summary of document history   Previous version Previousconsultation This version Subsequentconsultation Subsequentversion This version BCBS  |  QIS  |  05 December 2019  |  Status:  Current PDF full text (132kb)  |  6 pages Topics: QIS...

Remarks by Governor Kuroda at the Asia Pacific Initiative Forum (A Perspective on the Future of Asia)

日本語 Haruhiko Kuroda Governor of the Bank of Japan December 8, 2019 Full Text [PDF 406KB] Figures [PDF 222KB]

A conversation with Eric Tymoigne on MMT vs SMT

There are a lot of moving parts to the MMT program. I want to focus on one of these parts today: the relation between monetary and fiscal policy. One thing I find appealing about MMT scholars is their attention to monetary history and institutional details. I've learned a lot from them in this regard. But as is often the case with details, one has to worry about whether they help shed light on a specific question of interest, or whether they...

Benoît Cœuré: The single currency: an unfinished agenda

Speech by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the ECB Representative Office in Brussels, 3 December 2019It is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight to the ECB’s representative office in Brussels. It is overwhelming to see so many long-standing companions and friends.This office was established in the midst of the euro area sovereign debt crisis in 2011. Today, the Brussels office is part and parcel of the ECB. It is...

Back and forth between buying and building houses : What’s behind two different responses in the housing market?

[embedded content] Monetary policy affects interest rates, which affect mortgages, which affect decisions in the housing market. That may be easy to understand, but the housing data may not have such clear-cut patterns. Let’s see what FRED has to show us. The red line in the graph is the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (right axis) from the early 1970s to 2019. The blue line in the graph is the ratio of housing starts built by contractors...

Money Supply 2014-07-29 13:41:38

This blog will no longer be updated. Our thoughts on all things central banking, along with the more wonkish elements of economic policy, will appear on Alphaville and The World blog. Thank you for reading. You can keep in touch using our author alerts and twitter.

Chart of the WeekGlobal Carbon Emissions Are on the Rise Again

By Christian Bogmans, Akito Matsumoto, and Andrea Pescatori After good progress in the beginning of the decade, global carbon emissions have started to pick up again. This recent trend sets the world on a dangerous path: to slow the pace of climate change, carbon emissions need to be reduced. Our chart of the week from the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook shows that emissions have increased by 1 percent in 2017 and another 2 percent in...

Weekly links May 10: why CCTs aren’t enforced before elections, when evidence isn’t used, digitalizing data, and more…

On Let’s Talk Development, results from tax compliance trials in Kosovo show some small increases from reminders, but also highlight the challenges of implementation, with many people not receiving their assigned treatment (e.g. half the letters not making it to recipients, less than one-quarter of emails opened). The CSAE coder’s corner has Meredith Paker sharing ...

A way to make anonymous online donations

Paying for things online usually means giving up plenty of privacy. But this needn't always be the case. Last night I donated to a local charity via their website and didn't have to give up any of my personal information. The trick for achieving a degree of online payments anonymity? Not bitcoin, Zcash, or Monero. I used a product created by old fashioned bankers: a non-reloadable prepaid debit card. (I wrote about these cards here and here)....

Who Pays the Tax on Imports from China?

Matthew Higgins, Thomas Klitgaard, and Michael Nattinger Tariffs are a form of taxation. Indeed, before the 1920s, tariffs (or customs duties) were typically the largest source of funding for the U.S. government. Of little interest for decades, tariffs are again becoming relevant, given the substantial increase in the rates charged on imports from China. U.S. businesses and consumers are shielded from the higher tariffs to the extent...

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Reserve Bank alerting of phone call scam

Release date 06 December 2019 The Reserve Bank is alerting the public of what appears to be an automated phone call scam randomly targeting members of the public. The scam call, purportedly from the Reserve Bank, plays a pre-recorded message saying that the receiver has “an important customer message from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.” If the receiver stays on the call, a real person takes the call on the other end and...

2019-12-06 – Statistics – IMF Special Data Dissemination Standard (SNB Data), 6 December 2019

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USD/CHF Technical Analysis: Sluggish below 100-DMA, 38.2 percent Fibonacci

USD/CHF declines for the second consecutive day. 50% Fibonacci retracement, October low could challenge sellers. An upside break of 0.9890 highlights 200-DMA, 23.6% Fibonacci retracement. USD/CHF extends the recent pullback while flashing 0.9870 as a quote during early Friday. The pair recently pulled back from 100-Day Simple Moving Average (DMA) and 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of August-October rise. Prices are now likely declining towards...

An Attempt to Sort out the Fed’s Overnight Market Issues

First, we'll get up to speed on the state of monetary policy implementation in the United States of America, in case you haven't been paying attention. After the financial crisis, the Fed substantially increased the size of its balance sheet, primarily through the purchase of long-maturity Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. On the liabilities side of the balance sheet, the Fed has seen a steady increase over the last 10 years...

Monetary policy delegation rebounded, and an odd trade-off

Back in the day, monetary policy economists and practitioners discussed the benefits of delgating monetary policy to an independent central bank. There were two kinds. The first was to remove an ‘average inflation bias’.  Think of a two period game.  In period 1, the government says to an all encompassing trade union ‘we are going to give you 2 per cent inflation’.  Unions bargain for 4 per cent nominal wage increases to cover productivity and...