Xiamen City Hotel, Xiamen, 12 October 2018
A quantum leap from earlier breakfasts on this journey. Here we truly have quantity combined with quality. I barely know where to begin. A huge selection of Chinese dishes, of course. But, equally, a very ample spread of Western food: cold cuts, fruit – fresh and canned, many different breads,…
Lecturing to the University of Warwick Summer School at St Mary’s University, Twickenham
I spoke on The economic and social consequences of financing government spending through central banks.
Broad money growth bottoms out, monetary policy tightening continues
Global broad money growth seems to have bottomed out – and improved in the USA Money and other indicators imply activity will diverge, US improving, EA slowing But most central banks remain in tightening mode, meaning yield curves will remain flat My previous comment (Don’t underestimate central banks’ determination to…
On 4th May 2018, Gabriel Stein gave a lecture on ‘QE and QT’ at Cardiff Business School
Don’t underestimate central banks’ determination to normalise policy
• The Fed remains set to raise interest rates in 2018 and 2019 • Weaker outlook elsewhere has caused speculation that other central banks won’t shift policy • But this ignores central banks’ desire to exit unconventional measures Headline US inflation (the personal consumption expenditure deflator, PCE), reached 2% in the…
Robbing Peter to pay Paul, EU style
The European Commission apparently wants to lay its hands on the ECB’s profits. This is a bad and probably unworkable idea and is unlikely to happen. It does highlight the EU’s post-Brexit money problem. According to the Financial Times, the European Commission is considering appropriating the ECB’s profits in order…
Prepare for central bank regime change
Inflation-targeting independent central banks have a longer history than most CB regimes Market complacency that current regimes will remain is probably too optimistic Most new regimes mooted mean higher, more volatile inflation and thus lower growth Central bank and monetary policy regimes last longer than expected, but also change faster…
Vanishing US current account deficit would be bad news
There is still confusion about exactly how Mr Trump’s trade war will play out But the US current account deficit is more likely to widen than to narrow If it did narrow, that would be due to very bad news on the growth front The last week has seen what…
Money data say, replace cautious optimism with guarded pessimism
Over winter, broad money growth in the largest developed markets has slowed down At the same time, the growth of US large time deposits has slumped If maintained, current money trends point to below-trend growth and weaker asset prices In early January we wrote that broad money growth in the…
Populism Defeated
In spite of recent victories, populism usually fails, mainly because of its inherent contradictions But this does not deal with the underlying causes of populism The liberal order can triumph, but not by attempting to ‘out-populist’ the populists or by treating voters as ignorant fools Previous articles in this series…