Data
More than half of institutions favour semi-structural models
Just 35% of institutions include financial sector in key modelling
Central banks forecast GDP less accurately than inflation
Over half of central banks reviewed models in a bid to project more accurately
Majority of central banks prefer economists with master’s degree
Economists are sponsored more for training than for PhDs
BIS data shows ‘surge’ in OTC derivatives market value
Near 50% increase in space of six months reflects “elevated uncertainty”, BIS says
Economics teams constitute just a fraction of central banks’ total workforce
Most institutions have more policy economists than research colleagues
Staff with PhDs make up 21.3% of average economics department
Four-fifths of advanced economy institutions sponsor economists to undertake PhD qualification
Bank of Lithuania targets 2025 for data governance overhaul
Central bank moves to “hub-and-spoke” structure as it seeks to streamline reporting and analytics
Central banks judge success of research by number of publications
Inflation and exchange rate most topical issues for central banks
Use of centralised data services increases across institutions
Rise of central data teams has gone hand in hand with greater use of alternative data
Alternative data used at most central banks
Non-traditional data such as Google searches widely used to support research and forecasting
Chile’s Costa on tackling inflation, forex interventions and nowcasting
The Central Bank of Chile governor speaks about stubbornly high prices, Fed policy spillovers, reserve buffers, retail CBDC and the need to address unconscious bias
PBoC pushes big techs to hand over user data, report says
Some tech firms are resisting order to supply information to PBoC-led credit-scoring firms
Research economists devote more working time to own projects
On average, own research works consume 25% of policy economists’ working time
Advanced economy institutions tend to produce more papers
Emerging market researchers averaged five papers a year in peer-reviewed journals
Research agenda determined across multiple levels
Governors and deputy governors give final sign-off on most research publications
Das outlines RBI’s post-Covid research reforms
Central bank has adopted “full information” system to capture economic dynamics
Majority of banks blend research and policy functions
Only one in five jurisdictions restructured economics unit in the past 12 months
Growth and inflation are top forecast indicators
More emerging markets forecast growth and inflation compared with the past year
Currency Benchmarks 2022 charts
Take a deep dive into the Currency Benchmarks charts, which have just been released for 2022
ECB joins ‘Gaia-X’ data and cloud network project
Initiative aims to build a European data ecosystem to boost “digital sovereignty”
Climate analysis likely understates risk, say FSB and NGFS
Study finds scenario analysis struggles to capture more complicated dynamics
BIS publishes database on bitcoin adopters
Evidence suggests speculation is key motive for holding bitcoin, rather than distrust of traditional institutions
