RBA in neutral
Some central bankers have been as spooked as markets by the signs of late that global growth will disappoint.
Turkey’s central bank cut rates to an all-time low despite credit growth of 40 per cent, and the South African Reserve Bank’s Gill Marcus warned of more social unrest if world leaders failed to get a grip.
Officials in Australia are rather less concerned, however, that events elsewhere will hinder growth prospects at home. Read more
The week ahead in central banking
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Public appearances
A busy week is in store for Jean-Claude Trichet.
On Saturday, the ECB president will speak at Jackson Hole at 17:00 GMT. On Monday, Mr Trichet travels to Brussels, where he will field questions from the European parliament on how to restore market confidence (some suggestions from Ralph Atkins and Chris Giles).
The president will be joined by Jean-Claude Juncker, Eurogroup president, Jacek Rostowski, Poland’s finance minister and Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs. The hearing takes place at 13.00 GMT.
On Thursday, ECB executive board member Jürgen Stark is a participant in a panel on Europe and global competition. Read more
A calibrated Bernanke in Jackson Hole
The monetary policy parts of Ben Bernanke’s 2011 speech in Jackson Hole read as a carefully calibrated attempt to aim off his 2010 speech, and send a signal that the Fed is willing to do more, but that the scope for further action is less than it was a year ago.
The main statement of the Fed’s willingness to act is:
“The Committee will continue to assess the economic outlook in light of incoming information and is prepared to employ its tools as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability.”
Compare that with the 2010 equivalent: Read more
Jackson Hole 2011: Rodrik
The first paper of Jackson Hole 2011, by Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, is about economic convergence. It’s a neat and very accessible summary of recent research by Mr Rodrik, his collaborators and colleagues about the vexed question of why poor countries do not catch up with the rich. There’s a lot in there, but here’s a brief summary of some of the most interesting and original points.
Gaps between rich and poor countries are as high as they’ve ever been, but before the financial crisis, they’d started to come down
| About this blog | Blog guide |
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
