We’re running out of interest rates to cut to keep the economy from sinking. Before the next recession occurs, we need to come with an effective approach to monetary policy.
How many people realise that the central banks’ great programme for reviving the global economy involves hand-picking which companies and sectors to help out?
The Reserve Bank of Australia says it’s prepared to ease monetary policy further if needed to stimulate the economy. But is the policy working when interests rates are so low?
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Every one of the 13 economists surveyed by The Conversation thinks more stimulus is needed. None think it should all come from the Reserve Bank. Most think the budget surplus can wait.
The IMF has increasingly turned its focus to growing inequality worldwide. Ironically, research shows that policy reforms it mandated exacerbated income inequalities.
In many countries people are now paying more for bonds than they will receive at maturity. These negative interest rates should make it a good time for investment.
The debate about the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank must be located within a clearly articulated political vision and social compact on the kind of society South Africans aspire to.
A former senior economist with the Reserve Bank of Australia doubts Facebook’s cryptocurrency will take control of monetary policy away from central banks.
Economic polarisation across Europe is becoming an important phenomenon, in part driven by monetary policies that can increase office prices and can even affect the fundamentals that drive the markets.
It is thought that it doesn’t help much to cut official interest rates toward or beyond zero, and maybe it doesn’t, but new research suggests the answer has a lot to do with the housing market.
Distinguished Professor and Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics, School of Economics and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand