Central Banking Journal
Klaas Knot on ECB policy-making, the FSB and central bank ‘capture’
DNB president talks about the temporary nature of unconventional policies, the importance of inflation target ‘bands’, the role of central banks as ‘circuit-breakers’ and ECB decision-making under Christine Lagarde
Official institutions lead the Covid‑19 recovery charge
Tested by the Covid-19 pandemic, market consensus is that official institutions have been instrumental in mitigating market disruption. As economies work out how to adapt to a post-lockdown world, major public bodies are likely to play a key role in the…
The eurozone’s eastern conundrum
Bulgaria and Croatia expect a net positive effect as they take final steps to join the euro, while the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland remain reluctant
James Bullard on the Fed’s policy review, FSOC and forecasting jobs data
St Louis Fed president discusses his support for average inflation targeting, his concerns about US Treasuries market function, non-bank regulatory weakness and negative rates, as well as the unexpected success in using Homebase data to predict highly…
Covid-19 policy-making and the need for high-speed data
High-frequency data holds the promise of speed and adaptability, but the rush to find alternative economic indicators has the potential to create problems
Book notes: The menace of fiscal QE, by George Selgin
Much of this book is even more relevant, thought-provoking and important following Covid-19
Book notes: Radical uncertainty, by Mervyn King and John Kay
The one certainty we have faced is that we have to confront uncertainty, which is precisely the point of this wonderful book
Computing platforms for big data and AI
Implementing big-data and high-performance computing platforms is critical to support machine learning applications. Rafael Schmidt and Bruno Tissot offer insights on developing a comprehensive information strategy
How will Covid-19 hit central banks’ financial results?
The Covid-19 crisis has affected central bank incomes from seigniorage and other sources. But by how much, ask Zbigniew Polański and Mikołaj Szadkowski
Timothy Lane on CBDCs and why the private sector is no competition for central banks
The Bank of Canada deputy governor discusses the difference between a private-sector-motivated digital currency and a CBDC, and why finding a balance between privacy and regulation is such a challenge
Book notes: The state of economics, the state of the world, edited by Basu, Rosenblatt and Sepúlveda
The 2016 contributions of Nobel Prize-winning economists and others remain relevant to today
The evolving role of central bank money in payments
The line between commercial and central bank money continues to blur, but the multiple-issuer/one-currency paradigm underpinning the current monetary system is set to remain in a CBDC world, write Ulrich Bindseil and Ignacio Terol
Hélène Rey on macro-financial distortions and ‘phase 2’ of Covid-19
The LBS economics professor discusses monetary policy and financial exuberance, debt restructuring, and the use of machine learning to optimise ‘early-warning’ models to inform macro-prudential policy
Peter Praet on Europe’s Covid-19 responses
The former ECB chief economist talks about threats to financial stability, negative rates, common debt issuance and steps to improve the EMU
Coronavirus panic fuels a surge in cash demand
Covid-19 has led to banknote hoarding in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the eurozone, Russia and the US, fuelled by concerns about financial system stress, write Jonathan Ashworth and Charles Goodhart
Book notes: Stable banks in challenging times, by Andreas Dombret
Dombret’s stability and rule-based compass should be that for every aspiring central banker, worldwide
Central banking enters a new era
Central banks face a delicate balancing act to preserve their reputations as they evolve into ‘buyers of last resort’ and some of their actions appear functionally equivalent to ‘monetary financing’
Stress levels rising: investment funds and the Covid-19 shock
Extreme market stresses due to Covid-19 are underscoring the central role non-banks play in crisis contagion, as in 2008. Were regulators better prepared this time?
Campos Neto on reforming Brazil’s economy amid Covid-19 distress
The Central Bank of Brazil governor speaks about how Brazil is managing fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the benefit of large reserves, his plans to deploy emergency asset purchases and why he favours extending the IMF’s SDR funding
The complex art of reserve management
The coronavirus lockdown represents another inflection point for central banks seeking to optimise the management of their $12 trillion in FX reserves
Rising to the challenge – Reserve management in an uncertain world
Amid unprecedented measures being taken by central banks and governments to combat the global Covid‑19 pandemic, BlackRock‘s Stephan Meschenmoser, Laszlo Tisler and Crystal Wan compare and contrast BlackRock’s model portfolio against its high-grade…
Book notes: Central banking before 1800, by Ulrich Bindseil
A new standard reference point for the history of central banking
The ECB, the lockdown and the monetary financing lock
The eurozone’s central bank may need to break its prohibition on monetary financing to fight the pandemic
Fed set to adopt ‘elements’ of price-level targeting
Covid-19 could act as a catalyst for a Janet Yellen-supported Fed move to adopt elements of price-level targeting. But questions remain about the timing of such a move