Michael Reddell • Apr 19, 2018 •
Lots of people, even abroad, look at New Zealand’s economy. For example, there are ratings agencies selling a commercial product to clients, and there are investment funds putting their own and clients’ money at risk. And then there are the government agencies; notably the IMF and the OECD. Every year or so, a small team of IMF … Read More
Donal Curtin • Mar 11, 2015 •
Last week the Reserve Bank published the latest in its Analytical Note series, 'The Reserve Bank’s method of estimating “potential output”' (pdf here). If you're into macroeconomics in general or monetary policy in particular, you probably don't need your hand held about what potential output, and the output gap, are, but in case it's passed you by, the Note … Read More
Donal Curtin • Mar 02, 2015 •
You may have noticed that there is a rather ugly (in my view) effort underway to bring the US Federal Reserve under closer political control. The latest attempt to pass a so-called Federal Transparency Act was introduced by Kentucky Congressman Thomas ... Read More
Donal Curtin • Feb 17, 2015 •
As we all know, the Reserve Bank is in a difficult spot.It can't easily raise rates. It probably doesn't want to anyway, since (as I've argued before), overall monetary policy conditions are already too tight. But even if it did, the Kiwi dollar would appreciate, or at the very least not fall to the levels the RBNZ would like: … Read More
Donal Curtin • Dec 22, 2014 •
"At 3.5 percent", said last week's Monetary Policy Statement, "the OCR" - the official cash rate - "is still providing support to demand".Now, there's a sense in which this is true: a "neutral" rate, neither supportive nor contractionary, is reckoned t... Read More
Donal Curtin • Dec 12, 2014 •
Today's Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank didn't have any headline surprises - the official cash rate was kept at 3.5%, as everyone had expected, and any eventual increase is now pushed out to late 2015 or early 2016, again much in line w... Read More
Donal Curtin • Dec 02, 2014 •
Graeme Wheeler, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, gave a fine speech today at a central banking conference in Wellington. It's a fairly easy read, too, for the non-specialist, so best thing is have a go yourself. But if life's too short, here are the two big points I'd take from it.First, next time you hear politicians say, "why … Read More
Donal Curtin • Apr 03, 2014 •
I was re-reading Charles Wheelan's excellent Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science - one of the best books I know for explaining to non-specialists what economics is all about, as well as being a good reminder to those in the trade that you ca... Read More
Donal Curtin • Feb 18, 2014 •
I've been bothered for a while about the way we have a reasonably high (2.9%), and rising, inflation rate when you look at price rises in the domestic non-tradable part of the economy. And it's going to get worse, with the economy continuing to strengt... Read More
Eric Crampton • Jun 21, 2013 •
There is a time and place for non-traditional monetary policy mechanisms. In a world in which deflationary pressures are strong and the Reserve Bank has hit the zero-bound on interest rates, then standard monetarist macroeconomics and the new monetari... Read More