I’m still less than entirely well, so posts here will stay less frequent and less regular than usual for a while yet. That means things like last week’s OCR decision pass by with little comment (my only one will be, in what conceivable world five years ago would a severe global recession, the drying up … Continue reading On the trail of negative interest rates
How long have I been banging on about the potential limitations of monetary policy in the next recession and issues around negative interest rates? The first such post I could find on the blog was almost five years ago to the day, and as I’ve noted previously it had been a concern for some time … Continue reading Negative interest rates
I’ve been keeping an eye on the range of commentary and analysis appearing recently on negative policy interest rates – options and limitations. The issue has come back to prominence because of the BoJ’s recent modest move to introduce a negative policy rate, and amid the rising concerns about global growth and, perhaps, financial fragility that … Continue reading Negative interest rates: some thoughts
Late last week the New York Fed posted some interesting and thoughtful speech notes by James McAndrews, their Director of Research, on “Negative Nominal Central Bank Policy Rates: Where is the Lower Bound” (see also some comments here from John Cochrane). But McAndrews doesn’t really answer the question he poses, and instead offers a series of … Continue reading Negative nominal interest rates
In September last year, former Bank of England Deputy Governor Sir Paul Tucker published a substantial discussion paper suggesting paying a sub-market, or zero, interest rate on some portion of the huge increase in bank deposits at the central bank that had resulted (primarily) for the large-scale asset purchase programmes central banks had been running … Continue reading Interesting that the Minister of Finance asked for advice
No, I’m not getting back into some routine of daily posts, and on this occasion the two topics don’t even have anything to do with each other, but are just a couple of a leftovers from things I was looking at over the last couple of days. In my fiscal posts this week I’ve noted … Continue reading (a) real interest rates, and (b) NZers’ migration
Last week the International Monetary Fund released a paper prepared in its Monetary and Capital Markets Department by five researchers (one a former RBNZer). The title? Negative Interest Rates: Taking Stock of the Experience So Far. It isn’t an official IMF view, but it seems unlikely that a paper of this sort would have been published if … Continue reading Negative rates, and the option of more
Last week it was reported that the Reserve Bank’s chief economist Yuong Ha had told assembled journalists (at a media briefing on the Bank’s proposed new tools – all while they refuse to use the core one they already have) that “The worse situation we’d face right now is actually if we had house prices falling. Ha … Continue reading Housing, the Reserve Bank, and interest rates
There was a quite odd paper released yesterday by the New Zealand Initiative – the business-funded think tank, that has done quite a range of work on coronavirus-related policy issues – on monetary policy, fiscal policy, interest rates, and asset prices. I know some of my readers will agree with at least some of Bryce … Continue reading Interest rates
There was a little flurry of media coverage over the weekend about the latest set of cuts in retail mortgage interest rates. But it is worth keeping these changes in some perspective. The Reserve Bank publishes monthly data for the “special” rates advertised for new borrowers (or those moving to another bank) and we can … Continue reading Just how little interest rates have fallen
croaking cassandra 