It is a very good point that he could be educating foreign traders about New Zealand.

I’d say that its strange we have a situation where it is the RBNZ head doing that – and not someone in policy or in the statistics department.  For me, this is an important institutional issue – the central bank gets its independence in order to clarify its mandate, and that is what it should focus everything on as a result.

He may also be aware that overseas ratings agencies, currency traders and fund managers etc (i.e. a lot of the people who have the greatest impact on money flows in and out of NZ) probably read very little on New Zealand and releases from the RBNZ governor may be one of the few things they read. Surely providing a realistic view of the New Zealand economy’s performance relative to Australia is important in that regard?

For sure – but I wouldn’t say that is the issue per see.  I’m not sure hedonistic pleasures are the correct counterfactual for discussion on monetary policy for most people (not all).

If you just sit at home not doing monetary economics, your views on monetary economics will be determined by whatever small amount of information you get.  When that information is the head of the Bank discussing structural issues in the New Zealand economy, and the income gap with Australia, you are bound to get a different idea than when the head is discussing actual monetary policy.

And it is for that reason that I believe it has a much stronger, persistent, impact than we often give it credit for.

I’d also note that by discussing monetary policy lots, and clearly, they force a lot of other commentators who look at the issue all the time to get a clearer idea of the framework – a factor that in turn makes it more likely that people hear about the true “trade-offs” the RBNZ is battling with.

I was trying to imply that if the time was spent discussing monetary policy and how it works instead of watching TV, society would be better informed and policy/outcomes in that space would be improved.

Probably, but I think Keeping up with the Kardashians still has wider readership than all the world’s monetary policy writing combined =/

Hehe, I see where you are coming from.

I was trying to infer that if the time was spent discussing monetary policy and how it works instead of non-monetary issues, society would be better informed and policy/outcomes in that space would be improved.

I dream of a world where people get bored of listening to me talk about monetary policy, not because it sounds monotonous, but because the framework and justification for things are just so obvious.