The week ahead in central banking
Our week ahead email helps you to track the most important events in central banking. To see all of our emails and alerts visit www.ft.com/nbe
FOMC/ BoJ votes
The big events next week are the Federal Open Market Committee and Bank of Japan policy votes.
The FOMC decision, due out Wednesday afternoon DC time, is not expected to see further quantitative easing announced. However, the FT’s Gavyn Davies says this does not necessarily mean we’ve seen the last of QE from the Fed: Read more
Should central bankers’ pay depend on the accuracy of their inflation forecasts?
The Bank of England’s forecasting record, both for inflation and growth, has in recent years been woeful.
But would the Bank have done any better if its officials’ pay depended on the forecasts’ accuracy?
According to a paper out today from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the answer is yes.
The benchmark rate in New Zealand is back to its record low of 2.5 per cent after the Christchurch earthquake prompted a half point rate cut from the Reserve Bank. The move is intended to lessen the economic impact of the quake, stimulating the economy until the rebuilding phase begins.
“Even before the earthquake, GDP growth was much weaker than expected through the second half of 2010,” said the Bank. Consumers remained cautious, and the export sector, while benefiting from higher commodity prices, had been repaying debt rather than spending. Then came the earthquake. “Signs that the economy was beginning to recover early in 2011,” said the Bank, “have been more than offset by the Christchurch earthquake.” Read more
Waiting for more robust growth and a little inflationary pressure, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has again kept rates on hold. The official cash rate has been held at 3 per cent since mid-2010, when two 25bp rate rises lifted the rate from its record low of 2.5 per cent.
Governor Alan Bollard said: 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
