Hold on, Bank of England: The Fed is not so different from you on...
The Bank of England on Thursday released its latest Monetary Policy Report, announcing its decision to lower its policy rate by 25 bps to 4%. The report contains a lot of excellent analysis, including on the recent rise in food prices, the effect of trade war as well as a review of its quantitative tightening policy.
But one thing, a comparatively much less important thing, in the review just stuck in my mind...
A skeptical review of the QEs – why they might not be powerful as...
In their working paper "A Skeptical View of the Impact of the Fed's Balance Sheet," economists David Greenlaw, James D. Hamilton, Ethan Harris, and Kenneth D. West challenge some earlier studies that concluded QEs have a significant economic impact. Their major argument is that those research used simple event studies to quantify the impact of QE.
Shadow Fed Chair — and Powell’s nuclear option to counter it
President Trump's plan to install a "Shadow Chair" months before Jerome Powell's term ends will definitely reshape US monetary policy — but it could face a surprising challenge from Powell himself.
The sovereign-bank “doom loop”
Since the Euro crisis, investors and policymakers are well aware of the so-called "doom loop" between the banking system and the sovereign. That is, a crisis originating in the banking system (sovereign) will weaken the sovereign (banking system), which in turn will worsen the banking (sovereign) crisis itself.
In a recent ECB discussion Paper "Managing the sovereign-bank nexus", the 7 economists - Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, Caio Ferreira, Nigel Jenkinson, Luc Laeven, Alberto Martin, Camelia Minoiu, and Alexander Popov - coauthored the paper suggested that the banks and sovereigns are linked by three interacting channels:
Media Sentiment and International Asset Prices
A new working paper from the IMF which tries to assess the impact of media sentiment on equity markets.
Blanchard’s “Policy Model” v “Theory Model”
Back in November last year, Professor Olivier Blanchard discussed with me about his view that there should be four types of macroeconomics, and "theory...
Hong Kong Linked Exchange Rate & HKD-USD interest rate differential
HKD tends to be on the strong side (closer to HKD 7.75 per USD) when the interest rate differential is positive (HIBOR > LIBOR).
What is the Saturated Level of Reserves?
The Saturated Level of Reserves or efficient level of reserves, is the point which the opportunity cost for banks to hold reserves disappears, and became indifferent towards holding more reserves. The reserve demand curve beyond this point becomes close to horizontal.
Planet Money Book—a long-time listener, first-time reader’s review
Planet Money Book is an excellent introduction to economics and finance and reminded me why it is good to have Planet Money in our life.
Canada GDP: an Up-to-date checkup on the Canadian economy
While GDP rebounded by 0.65% in Q3 (2.6% annualized), the expansion was driven almost entirely by a 2.2% drop in imports.















