Central Bankers in the Minsky Moment: How Different Central Banks Have Responded to the Threat of Debt-Deflation

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Dimand ◽  
Robert H. Koehn
Keyword(s):  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Bankers ◽  
Debt Deflation

Putting the Program into Action, 1920–1928

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James Bytheway ◽  
Mark Metzler
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Financial Globalization ◽  
International Network ◽  
Bank Of England ◽  
International Monetary Policy ◽  
Central Bankers

This chapter details how Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, in partnership with Benjamin Strong of the FRBNY, turned ad hoc wartime cooperation into a formal agenda. The paired ideas that national central banks should be autonomous, and that they should cooperate with each other, were first spelled out in a private “manifesto” that Norman circulated among fellow central bankers in 1921. Central bank cooperation was internationally recognized as a principle at the 1922 Genoa Conference, and it was also put into practice. Cooperation between central banks began primarily as informational cooperation, which includes not only the sharing of information but also the sharing and propagation of worldviews. An international network of central banks thus developed out of the war, as did the world's first truly coordinated system of international monetary policy. In these and other ways, financial globalization surged to a new level in the 1920s.

Does politics drive conflict in central banks’ committees? Lifting the veil on the European Central Bank consensus

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-203
Author(s):  
Manuela Moschella ◽  
Nicola M Diodati
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
European Central Bank ◽  
Semantic Distance ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Projected Image ◽  
European Central ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Central Bankers

This study investigates whether and to what extent political factors drive disagreement within the allegedly consensual monetary committee of the European Central Bank. Absent voting data, the article assesses disagreement based on the semantic distance between the policy positions publicly articulated by the European Central Bank President and the central banks of Eurozone member states. The empirical analysis shows that the disagreement articulated by national central bankers is affected by the ideological inclinations of the governments of the countries they represent. Our findings thus suggest that central bankers’ position-taking is shaped not only by economic conditions but also by domestic political considerations. This result challenges the European Central Bank’s projected image of itself as an institution whose members are impermeable to domestic political pressures as a way to defend the independence of the institution to which they belong.

The Over-Burdened Central Bank and the Shift Away from Autonomy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre L. Siklos
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Banking ◽  
Forward Guidance ◽  
Self Assessments ◽  
Crisis Conditions ◽  
Central Bankers ◽  
Influence Behavior

Many central banks took on additional responsibilities. Inadequate self-assessments remain unfinished almost a decade after the crisis erupted. Government-central bank relationships need to be conditioned on whether times are normal versus crisis conditions. Transparency confronts ambiguity when central banks must communicate the outlook and the conditionality of their decisions. Forward guidance was taken too far and ended up being futile. Central bankers simply exhausted their ability to influence behavior through mere words or ambiguous statements. This is a self-inflicted wound for institutions that are seen as overburdened. These forces leave central banking more vulnerable than is commonly acknowledged. Squaring the conventional objectives of monetary policy with the unclear aims of financial stability is difficult. Adequate limitations on the authority of central banks have yet to be thoroughly debated. We are nowhere near resolving the inherent tensions between old and new sets of central bank objectives.

scholarly journals Communication, Credibility, and Price Stability: Lessons Learned from Japan

2012 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Owen F. Humpage
Keyword(s):  
Central Banks ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Price Stability ◽  
Monetary Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
European Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
Central Bankers

Over the past couple of decades, central banks have been taking steps to increase the transparency of their monetary policies through clearer communications with the public. While there are many differences between the economic challenges Japan has been struggling with in the past decade and those facing U.S. and European central bankers now, we can learn a great deal about combating deflation from Japan’s experiences.

scholarly journals Central Banking and Inequalities: Old Tropes and New Practices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clément Fontan ◽  
Peter Dietsch ◽  
François Claveau ◽  
Jérémie Dion
Keyword(s):  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Banking ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Bank Of Canada ◽  
The One ◽  
Central Bankers ◽  
Do So

This paper presents a critical analysis of the stance taken on inequality by two central banks since 2015: the Bank of Canada (BoC) and the Federal Reserve (Fed). The analysis is informed by a computer-assisted discourse analysis of how central bankers from the two institutions position themselves when it comes to issues of inequality. We observe that the position on inequality of the two central banks has changed in recent years and continues to do so. We argue that the stance on inequality taken by the BoC and the Fed suffers from a number of both inconsistencies and shortcomings. On the one hand, the BoC and the Fed claim that monetary policy instruments are too blunt to target specific sectors of the economy. On the other hand, with their response to COVID-19, they have demonstrated that such targeting is possible after all.

scholarly journals How central bankers learned to love financialization: The Fed, the Bank, and the enlisting of unfettered markets in the conduct of monetary policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Walter ◽  
Leon Wansleben
Keyword(s):  
Inflation Targeting ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Banking ◽  
Asset Bubbles ◽  
Benign Neglect ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
Financial Growth ◽  
Institutional Foundations ◽  
Central Bankers ◽  
Infrastructural Power

Abstract Central banks’ role in financialization has received increasing attention in recent years. These debates have predominantly revolved around authorities’ ‘benign neglect’ of asset bubbles, their deregulatory policies, and the safety nets they provide for speculative exuberance. Most analyses refer to the dominance of pro-market interests and ideas to explain these actions. The present article moves beyond these accounts by showing how an alignment between techniques of monetary governance and ‘unfettered’ financial markets can explain central banks’ endorsement of increasingly fragile structures of liquidity and their strategic ignorance towards growing amounts of debt. We analyze the processes of abstraction and formalization by which the ‘programmes’ and ‘technologies’ of monetary governance have been made compatible with the texture of contemporary finance; and we show how central banks’ attempts to make markets more amenable to their methods of policy implementation shaped new conduits for financial growth. As empirical cases, we discuss the Federal Reserve’s experiments with different policy frameworks in the 1980s and the Bank of England’s twisted path to inflation targeting from 1979 to 1997. These cases allow us to demonstrate that the infrastructural power of contemporary central banking is predicated on the same institutional foundations that have made financialization possible.

scholarly journals Opportunistic, not Optimal Delegation: The Political Origins of Central Bank Independence

2020 ◽  
pp. 001041402095767
Author(s):  
Nicole Rae Baerg ◽  
Julia Gray ◽  
Jakob Willisch
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Bank Independence ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Government ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Optimal Delegation ◽  
Central Bankers

Economists have long argued that central banks ran by technocrats have greater independence from the government. But in many countries, politically experienced central bankers are at the helm, including even highly independent central banks. To explain the level of central bank independence awarded, we develop a formal model where nominating politicians screen central bankers for their political ambitions. We show how screening and reelection efforts by the nominating politician changes the level of autonomy associated with different types of candidates. We predict that technocrats are associated with higher levels of independence than nominees with political experience, but as the appointing politician faces tougher reelection, candidates with political experience are associated with higher independence as well. We test our theory using new data from 29 post-communist countries between 1990 and 2012. We find evidence that the reelection strategy of the nominating politician is an important predictor of the level of central bank independence.

Summary of Informal Discussions with Central Bankers and Other Officials on Unconventional Monetary Policies

Policy Papers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Market ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Emerging Market Economies ◽  
Conference Calls ◽  
Monetary Policies ◽  
Market Economies ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Central Bankers

A series of conference calls was held in March 2013 with selected representatives of central banks and other official agencies in advanced and emerging market economies to seek views on unconventional monetary policies (UMP). The key points raised during the discussions are summarized below. No views have been attributed to individual participants, and Fund staff is ultimately responsible for the contents of this summary.

The Limits to Central Bank Co-operation, 1916–36

1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Mouré
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
International System ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
World War ◽  
Central Bankers ◽  
National Experience

Central bankers failed in their efforts to reconstruct the international gold standard on a durable basis after World War I. The gold-exchange standard did not unite them in a managed international system in the 1920s, and it perished with little regret in 1931. Stephen V. O. Clarke's monograph on central bank co-operation sees ‘considerable merit’ in the stabilisation efforts from 1924 to 1928, followed by failure to maintain the system from 1928 to 1931.1 Critics have pointed out with justice that co-operation was irregular before 1928, and that central banks continued to co-operate after 1931.2 Clarke recognizes that no conceivable improvements in central bank co-operation could have coped with the combination of political and economic convulsions in 1931; national goals necessarily took priority in central bank policies, and international objectives were determined by national experience and interest.3

scholarly journals Independence of Central Banks: The Need for an Urgent Revamp!

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Moutot
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Current System ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Central Bank Independence ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Disruptive Technologies ◽  
Fatal Flaw ◽  
Central Bankers

AbstractOver the last years, independent central banks were often criticized. Many critics felt that the fatal flaw of the current system lied in its independent nature. Some critics argued that the remedy to such problems was to replace independence with interdependence. Such a drastic measure is completely unnecessary. No more time should be lost discussing further the merits or the weaknesses of central bank independence. But taking central bank independence as a given, one should simply try to equip central bankers with the mandates, the tools, and the values best fitted to help them face future shocks. Deeper checks and balances with other institutions and the fair financing of investment by all economic agents, including startups and SMEs, are urgently necessary to head off financial crises that will inevitably arise in this era of growing wealth inequality, disruptive technologies and climate change.

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