In New Zealand there are often complaints that bank profits are exorbitant – especially given that profitability rose during a massive financial crisis. While there is an argument that banks are backed by a lender of last resort, and that they should pay for this (such as through a tax) this doesn’t tell us too […]
This is a list post – so make of it what you will. Bill Kaye-Blake has been discussing the macroeconomy in New Zealand (*,*,*), and hunting for a way to make the narrative clearer – I’ve been chatting about it with him in commetns, and Eric Crampton listed up some points here. Reframing the narrative […]
I am still a fan of flexible inflation targeting. I agree with Nick Rowe that explicit inflation targeting has made inflation outcomes “stickier” – and that knowing inflation is in a range of the inflation target is therefore insufficient for telling if the central bank is truly achieving “socially optimal policy”. For all the time […]
You know I don’t believe that the “currency war” is a negative thing in a world of insufficient demand (*,*,*,*,*). But Menzie Chen from Econbrowser has the same view – and to be absolutely honest their view is significantly more reputable than mine 😉 . Furthermore, it was a point that Chen made all the […]
With people in NZ constantly yelling about the dollar, and yelling at the Reserve Bank, I thought I would host a hypothetical discussion that hopefully helps to explain the issues – and why inflation targeting isn’t the cause of any of the perceived problems. Here it goes: Intelligent non-economist (INE): The dollar is too high, […]
In this piece on Bloomberg, Mark Carney (the govenor of the Bank of Canada, and soon to be governor of the Bank of England) points out that the criticism of the BOJ for the drop in the Yen isn’t fair: Speaking on the same Davos panel, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney commended Japan’s focus […]