‘Yes, I guess’: Further transparency at the FOMC
In December 2004, the FOMC voted to expedite the release of its minutes to three weeks after they announce their policy decisions (about three weeks sooner than they had been).
Recently released transcripts give us a window in to the committee’s thinking, and the decision was not made lightly. You can imagine that now – as legislators call for increased Fed transparency – the FOMC may be having similar debates about what information is it going to offer to share with the public. Read more
Earlier, we showed how the bail-out breaks down by country. This shows how it breaks down by time. The 2011-2012 boxes shows estimates of the remaining split, based on the fact that both years have similar levels of government debt maturing.
As far as we know, the debt will be drawn in parallel between the eurozone countries and the IMF, in a ratio of 8:3. The first tranche should arrive in Greece before May 19, when €8.5bn debt matures. Read more
Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou told Ralph this morning that a Greek return to the debt markets is “likely” for 2011.
The timing is important because every euro raised in the debt markets is a euro that is either not needed from the bail-out, or that can be used to help other parts of the economy. €60.9bn of Greek government bonds are due to mature between now and the end of 2012. Read more
BoE forecasting errors
The Bank of England has made grotesque and interesting errors in its forecasting since the financial and economic crisis started. So says Fathom Consulting in its quarterly Monetary Policy Forum, which performs a useful service both in estimating the effect of the general election squabble over spending cuts using a replica of the Bank’s economic model and by calculating the Bank’s cumulative errors in its forecast.
On the former, the FT covered the inevitable conclusion that the row over national insurance is a sideshow this morning. Read more
No contagion here. The Australian central bank has just raised its cash rate 25bp to 4.25 per cent. The new rate is effective tomorrow.
The move underscores the diverging fates of Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The Reserve Bank of Australia acknowledges problems in Europe, but the governor comments: “To date, there has been very little contagion outside Europe.” He adds: “Australia’s terms of trade are rising by more than earlier expected, and this year will probably regain the peak seen in 2008.” Read more
Below is a table showing the size of bilateral loans we believe will be due from each eurozone country. Figures are based on the ECB subscriptions ratio.
We are filling in the right-hand side as we see parliamentary approvals. Read more
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Michael Steen, Frankfurt bureau chief, covers the ECB and the eurozone's economies. He joined the Financial Times in 2007 as Amsterdam correspondent and later worked as a front page news editor in London. Before joining the FT, he spent nine years as a correspondent at Reuters, mostly in foreign postings that included a previous stint in Frankfurt, as well as Moscow, Kiev and central Asia. He read German and Russian at Cambridge.RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
