Central Banking Series

Paul Volcker helped shape an independent Federal Reserve – a vital legacy that's under threat

Dec 11, 2019 03:57 am UTC| Insights & Views Central Banks Economy

Paul Volcker, who died on Dec. 8, is the poster boy for central bank independence and why it matters. One of his legacies, as you may have read in the many obituaries published since his death, is taming the runaway...

How randomised trials became big in development economics

Dec 10, 2019 05:16 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

The 2019 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to three researchers for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty, one which has transformed development economics. What are randomised experiments? And why...

Key trade rules will become unenforceable from midnight. Australia should be worried

Dec 10, 2019 05:15 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

An important part of the World Trade Organization will cease to function from midnight. December 10 is when the terms of two of the remaining three members of its Appellate Body expire. It is meant to have seven. The...

GDP update: spending dips and saving soars as we stash rather than spend our tax cuts

Dec 09, 2019 05:27 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

Australians saved rather than spent most of the budget tax cuts, almost doubling the proportion of household income saved, leaving spending languishing. The September quarter national accounts show that in the first...

A global downturn looks likely, yet it's being totally ignored in the UK election

Dec 09, 2019 04:52 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

For all the marked policy differences between the different parties in the UK election, they share a common blindspot. They all seem to assume that the UK is the sole determiner of its economic fate. There is nothing in...

This small German town took back the power – and went fully renewable

Dec 09, 2019 04:50 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

The case for ambitious and transformative environmental policy is being made with increasing fervour and a series of Green New Deals a reference to Roosevelts economic reform programme in the 1930s have been proposed...

Economic democracy: why handing power back to the people will fix our broken system

Dec 09, 2019 04:48 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

Behind the superficial froth of the UK election campaign, the competing parties are offering fundamentally different visions of the economy, who controls it and who benefits from it. The Conservatives and, to some extent,...