As treasurer, Bill Hayden set Labor on the path to economic rationalism

Oct 24, 2023 09:21 am UTC| Economy Central Banks

Former Labor leader and governor-general Bill Hayden, whose death was announced on Saturday, is rightly being remembered for introducing Australias first universal healthcare scheme Medibank, which lives on today as...

Central Banking Series

Inflation: raising interest rates was never the right medicine

Oct 23, 2023 08:19 am UTC| Economy Central Banks

Inflation remains too high in the UK. The annual rate of consumer price inflation to September was 6.7%, the same as a month earlier. This is well below the 11.1% peak reached in October 2022, but the failure of inflation...

Central Banking Series

Interest rates: Monetary policy is always political as central banks opt to back the financial sector

Sep 29, 2023 08:50 am UTC| Economy Central Banks Politics

As the Bank of Canada prepared to announce its decision on interest rates in early September, Tiff Macklem, the banks governor, received imploring letters from premiers spanning both the country and the political...

Central Banking Series

Why central banks should stop raising interest rates

Sep 28, 2023 02:49 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy Central Banks

Mortgage borrowers breathed a sign of relief following a recent pause in the Bank of Englands 14-month campaign of base rate hikes. Led by the US Federal Reserve, many of the worlds major central banks, including the...

Central Banking Series

Inflation: I've been analysing the Bank of England's forecast over the past two years – here's how they got it wrong

Sep 26, 2023 03:55 am UTC| Economy Central Banks

The Bank of England (BoE) has been strongly criticised for failing to predict the surge in inflation. Had it done so, it could have reacted more quickly and prevented inflation from rising as high as 11% in autumn...

Central Banking Series

The Federal Reserve held off hiking interest rates

Sep 23, 2023 03:19 am UTC| Economy Central Banks

Federal Reserve officials held interest rates steady at their monthly policy meeting on Sept. 20, 2023 only the second time they have done so since embarking on a rate-raising campaign a year and a half ago. But it is...

Central Banking Series

Meet Michele Bullock, the RBA insider tasked with making the Reserve Bank more outward-looking as its next governor

Jul 17, 2023 12:59 pm UTC| Central Banks Insights & Views

Australias next Reserve Bank governor, Michelle Bullock the first woman in the job will take office in September at a time when much of the banks work in fighting inflation will be done and its focus will be on changing...