Central Banking
US real-estate concern goes global
Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Guy Debelle says US commercial real estate woes may impose further crippling losses on banks
Governors back greater role for monetary aggregates
Christian Noyer, Glenn Stevens and Duvurri Subbarao say more attention must be paid on monetary aggregates
Islamic finance must try new innovations: Malaysia’s Razif
Bank Negara Malaysia deputy governor Mohammad Razif bin Abdul Kadir says linkages between Malaysian and Bahraini bourse will strengthen liquidity management in Islamic finance
Norwegian housing finance still underdeveloped: Gjedrem
Norges Bank governor Svein Gjedrem says variable-rate mortgages still account for too large a part of the housing finance market
Labour Market Review (January) – Bank of Estonia
Estonian central bank says unemployment has become structural, and would continue to increase in the first half of this year
Inventories and the Phillips Curve
A Richmond Fed paper finds that introducing inventories into the New Keynesian model limits its ability to capture inflation dynamics
“We failed the system”: Carney at RBI panel
Governors including Canada’s Mark Carney and India’s Duvvuri Subbarao point to imbalances as root cause of the crisis, but skirt around concerns over the dollar
Germans in favour of kicking Greece out: poll
Survey in leading newspaper shows 53% of Germans think Greece should be kicked out of the eurozone if its debt troubles cannot be resolved, 67% want no part in a bail-out
ECB beefs up financial stability wing
European Central Bank readies itself for the establishment of European Systemic Risk Board; appoints director general
FSA’s Turner queries faith in deep and liquid markets
Britain’s top regulator calls for a conservative approach to liquidity, arguing that excessive financial activity is liable to do more damage than good
Mooted Fed policy shift presents dangers
Changing its operating target to the interest on reserves tool could be the best available fix for the Federal Reserve as it implements its exit strategy. But it is a process that poses risks
RBIs Subbarao pillories inflation targeting
India’s governor says crisis has “diluted if not dissolved” inflation-targeting consensus; says fiscal dominance likely to remain
Hungary split on size of cut
Minutes of the Hungarian central bank’s January meeting reveal that three members wanted a larger cut than was ultimately implemented on the threat of disinflation
Riksbank’s Nyberg: cards systemically important
Riksbank’s Lars Nyber says cards are overtaking cash in Nordic countries, but security still an issue
Canada has weathered the downturn well: BoC’s Duguay
Bank of Canada deputy governor Pierre Duguay says although output and growth rates fell sharply, the country did better than elsewhere
Spending and loose monetary policy cause inflation
CEPR looks for an explanation for UK inflation in the 1970s
Inflation targets must be raised: IMF’s Blanchard
IMF economists Olivier Blanchard, Giovanni Dell’Ariccia and Paulo Mauro call for central banks to revise their price growth targets if they want to avoid crippling deflation
British regulator asks for 10% more funds
Financial Services Authority puts bulk of responsibility to pay up on the bigger banks
China surprises with second reserve requirement hike
People’s Bank of China ups its reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points to drain excess liquidity from system
Fifty years of monetary policy
Reserve Bank of Australia’s Glenn Stevens and economists Adam Cagliarini and Christopher Kent document the birth of inflation targeting and look to the lessons from fifty years of policymaking
Monthly bulletin (February) – ECB
ECB’s second monthly bulletin of the year shows a shift away from broad money, both into longer-term assets and narrow money
China’s SWF to take control of its portfolios
China Investment Corporation will increase the proportion of investments that are managed in house, says its chairman Lou Jiwei
HKMA in fresh drive to spur yuan trade
Hong Kong Monetary Authority measures promote renminbi bond issuance and settlement
British PM heralds global bank levy
British prime minister Gordon Brown flags growing consensus among leaders on a global bank tax following Obama proposals