Central Banks
One in five central bank economists have a PhD
Central banks in Africa lag behind peers in sponsoring PhD programmes
Eurozone officials call for major fiscal changes
Stability and Growth Pact is hampering policy, speakers at ECB conference argue
Mexican senate approves new governor
Victoria Rodriguez will become first female governor of the Bank of Mexico
Quarles says Congress should rein in Fed funding
Former vice-chair for supervision calls for new body to wind down liquidity programmes
Kareem Michael to be new Belize governor
Former deputy governor will be third central bank head this year after predecessor was fired
BoE opens sharia-compliant facility after six years of work
‘Wakalah’ liquidity facility designed to address disadvantage faced by Islamic banks
Book notes: Empire of silver, by Jin Xu
A useful introduction to China’s monetary history, focusing on the last 1,000 years, but not the easiest of reads throughout
Covid-19 causes bigger growth forecast errors
But central banks perform better at forecasting inflation
Eurozone unemployment declines to 7.3%
Youth unemployment rate also falls but is much higher at 15.9%
RBNZ begins wide-ranging review of cash
New Zealand’s central bank warns of potential harm caused by “retreat from cash”
Monetary policy’s potency may wane over time – BIS paper
Low rates might cause aggregate demand to become less sensitive to monetary stimulus, authors say
People: Chilean Senate confirms board member
Plus senior appointments in New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and more
Economist salaries outpace GDP per capita
Salaries were six times higher than GDP per capita, on average
How Turkey’s president created chaos in economic policy-making
Observers allege presidential domination of the central bank, unauthorised FX transactions and untrustworthy statistics
Former Latvian governor must face prosecution, court rules
ECJ says Rimšēvičs does not have official immunity over alleged bribe-taking and money laundering
Powell: FOMC may accelerate taper
Fed will no longer refer to inflation as “transitory”
Has the SNB accepted a stronger franc?
Swiss central bank reduces FX interventions as currency breaks 1.05 ceiling against the euro
Central banks’ diversity policies can only go so far – RBA’s Debelle
Policies can only go so far in reducing the inequality gap, Debelle says, while providing update on “reconciliation” plan
Eurozone QE helped increase R&D spending, paper finds
Firms that had bonds bought by the ECB increased R&D spending by 9% on average
Policy economists outnumber research economists
Central banks with their own pure research departments tend to employ more policy economists
Podcast: central banks’ data models going granular
Vizor Software’s chief technology officer, Ryan Flood, provides an update on changes to central banks’ regulatory data models