Monetary Policy
Unexpected increases in Fed funds rate prompt gold prices to rise
Atlanta Fed working paper examining futures data between 1998-2008 finds that unexpected changes in the Fed's monetary policy can influence commodity prices
ECB ‘ready and able to act’ as staff lower inflation forecasts
European Central Bank holds key interest rate at 0.25% as staff predict inflation drop in 2014; Draghi says governing council is willing to use ‘all available instruments’
East African states strike deal over monetary union
Political leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda sign protocol outlining the path towards an East African single currency area
Bank of Russia sees inflation out of monetary policy control
Improvements to the transmission mechanism should enable the Russian central bank to target inflation more effectively, but prices will be influenced predominantly by non-monetary factors
BoJ’s Sato says central bank is ‘breaking away’ from incremental policy
Policy board member Takehiro Sato says QQE marks a departure from the conventional incremental approach to policy-making; says additional easing could be ‘counterproductive'
National Bank of Denmark winds up emergency lending measures
Six-month loans against a broad range of collateral introduced during the financial crisis will be terminated next year as normality returns to financial sector, central bank says
RBA’s Stevens laments ‘uncomfortably high’ currency
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens says the Australian dollar is still too strong, despite depreciation against the US dollar
Korea sheds light on MPC voting results
Bank of Korea monetary policy report reflects on the decision to announce voting results in the wake of MPC meetings; only one disagreement in the ensuing seven meetings
NY Fed vice-president on the evolution of Fed monetary operations
Simon Potter says the Fed has 'developed and tested' many different monetary policy tools since the crisis, including term and overnight reverse repos 'diverting deposits from banks'
Maltese governor says ECB’s policy will ‘take a while’ to hit periphery
Josef Bonnici attributes the drop in loans to the private sector in the eurozone’s stressed countries to the ‘weak and uneven’ monetary policy transmission mechanism
BoJ will need ‘aggressive' re-capitalisation at end of QQE, top economist warns
Nomura chief economist warns the practice of handing over the profits from QE to the Japanese government means the central bank could find itself under-capitalised when the programme ends
Mersch defends ECB’s Chinese walls
European Central Bank executive board member Yves Mersch says plans to keep monetary and supervisory functions separate will ensure any ‘conflicts of interest’ are avoided
Liikanen calls for ‘precise’ communication at point of exit
Bank of Finland governor Erkki Liikanen emphasises the importance of central banks providing detailed and accurate communication as they approach the ‘turning point’ of monetary policy
Monetary union hampers current account adjustment, say Bundesbank economists
Paper examines current account dynamics in countries with fixed and floating exchange rates, and countries in a monetary union; find evidence that monetary union might aggravate existing imbalances
San Fran Fed letter highlights impact of oil prices on inflation expectations
Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco say consumers update their inflation expectations using a ‘few simple rules of thumb’ – one of which is linked to the price of oil
Polish paper explains perceptions of higher inflation
Economists at the National Bank of Poland construct a consumer perceived price index that reflects the population’s loss aversion to price increases
Lithuania on track to join euro at second time of asking
The Bank of Lithuania has started publishing regular forecasts that keep track of the country’s progress towards meeting the convergence criteria necessary for accession to the eurozone
ECB’s Mersch warns against excess liquidity policy becoming ‘permanent feature’
Executive board member Yves Mersch says it is now up to banks to make the most of the ‘favourable financing conditions’ created by the ECB
IMF paper highlights benefits of model-based approach to monetary policy analysis in LICs
New paper taking Kenya as an example finds benefits of a model-based approach to monetary policy analysis in low-income countries, including in countries with money-targeting frameworks
Diminishing importance of US in world economy mutes knock-on effects, finds BoJ paper
Tightening monetary policy in the US in the 1990s had significant adverse effects in the rest of the world - but the following decade, despite increased global integration, the effects were less
Riksbank reviews 20 years of inflation targeting
Sweden’s central bank publishes four research papers on different countries’ experience of inflation targeting and monetary policy; Lars Svensson and Michael Woodford are among the contributors
BSP to stay put on monetary policy following Haiyan
Philippines central bank is not expected to raise rates despite supply bottlenecks causing inflation spikes in the wake of typhoon Haiyan
Kuroda says Japan is on track to hit price target
Bank of Japan governor says the central bank’s QQE has brought about ‘positive developments’ that are spreading throughout financial markets and the real economy; sees inflation hitting 2% by 2015
Fed could step in if US government hits debt ceiling, minutes show
Federal Reserve policymakers held unscheduled meeting the day before US Congress suspended the national debt limit; agreed the NY Fed trading desk could 'address disruptions in market functioning'