Treasurer Joe Hockey and billionaire Rupert Murdoch recently made impassioned speeches expressing their deep concern about the problem of rising inequality —the rich are getting richer, while the poor…
The US Federal Reserve this week has moved one step closer to lifting interest rates by ending its controversial bond-buying program. This begins a long-anticipated process that will take many months to…
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has her work cut out for her if she hopes to change the culture at the world’s most important central bank. Media reports abound with evidence that the financial industry…
As the US economy emerges from recession, the prospect of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates grabs the attention of the financial markets more and more. US rates have been close to zero for…
Six years after the dramatic collapse of Lehman Brothers, the United States economy is finally showing signs of a stronger recovery from the global financial crisis. The Federal Reserve (Fed) is winding…
The European Central Bank’s decision to cut its interest rates further showed that the zero rate rubicon holds no fear, while one substantial bullet was kept in the barrel. It is a useful marker for markets…
Last Tuesday the minutes of August’s Reserve Bank of Australia board meeting were released. Market participants speculated about what they would say, currency and bond markets responded to what they did…
In imploring the world to be less dependent on the US dollar for international transactions, French finance minister Michel Sapin is expressing a wish that many of the euro’s creators hoped would already…
When the European Central Bank sent markets reeling yesterday with moves designed to stimulate growth, the 24 people who made that decision could remain comfortable that their exact arguments and misgivings…
The effective death of the forward guidance strategy offered by the Bank of England came with the announcement in early February that there would be a switch to a less quantitative approach. Dubbed by…
Ben Bernanke prepares to vacate his seat as Chairman of the US Federal Reserve on Friday, making way for for Janet Yellen, just as the developed economies finally seem to be coming right. Yellen’s impact…
The US Federal Reserve has announced that after more than five years of support, the “tapering” of its quantitative easing program is to begin. So what will the consequences of the gradual withdrawal of…
The US debt crisis is over for now, but legislators have just kicked the can down the road. In this series on the US debt ceiling, academics from Australia, the UK and the US assess the lingering global…
If endorsed by the US Senate, Janet Yellen is set to become the first woman to head the US Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in the world. She’ll replace the current chairman Ben Bernanke…
When financial markets stood on the verge of collapse in the summer of 2008, two of the world’s most important central banks, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, began considering unorthodox…
The US Federal Reserve’s surprise decision to continue quantitative easing (QE) was generally well received in those countries with rapidly growing and industrialising economies. They were worried that…
The surprising news that Larry Summers has withdrawn his bid to become the next chair of the US Federal Reserve has opened up the big question of who should lead America’s central bank. The new front runner…
The Indian economy is in trouble. The anticipated tapering of the US Federal Reserve’s aggressively expansionary quantitative easing program has seen a drying up of capital inflow into a country with a…
US reports have recently circulated of a government probe into the hiring of former Colonel Norbert Vergez by the private equity firm Patriarch Partners, headed by billionaire “turnaround queen” and would-be…
Echoes of the Global Financial Crisis resonate while debate continues on the best way of dealing with its consequences, including the actions taken by the Europeans and Americans to counter its effects…