Broad money growth in all four large advanced economies is healthy, but slowing Crucially, the growth of non-bank financial institutions’ money holdings is subdued Money data point to continued but somewhat less support for assets As we enter into 2018, broad money growth in all major advanced economies is presenting…
Bond markets move in long – secular – cycles, with at least five since the 1870s After a bull market since 1982, we are now likely headed for a multi-decade bear market However, bond yields are unlikely to reach levels seen from the 1970s to the mid-1990s Bond markets, like…
US house prices reached an all-time high in October 2017 But real house prices are still 12% below their October 2005 peak Subdued house price growth will affect housing – and household savings and investment US house prices – specifically, the median price of existing homes – reached another all-time…
I wrote the following piece for my blog on 4th June 2007, well before the rise of ISIS and the Arab Spring. Some of the details are therefore dated and I have made some adjustment in bold where it was necessary. However, as another conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran looms,…
Corruption is a cancer on societies, both in terms of economic and of social cost. It is not enough to tackle the symptoms of corruption; the underlying causes must also be attacked. Both Saudi Arabia and China are doing the former but ignoring the latter. They will therefore fail. Last…
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has a special place for central bank watchers. It pioneered the introduction of inflation targeting in the 1990s[1], and was for many the first truly independent central bank of the modern era, with a target of 0-2% inflation and the full freedom of independent…
Digital currencies – sometimes called cryptocurrencies – are suddenly much in the news. What is behind this, and what is the future for this new form of finance?
So far in this series of articles, we have considered the immediate challenges in front of central banks, which in a nutshell revolve around the normalisation of monetary policy and the re‑establishment of a more orthodox relationship with markets. In this final article we consider the longer term outlook, once…
