Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism.

Jonah Whanau

2019-04-21 10:07:54 Sun ET

Central bank independence remains important for core inflation containment in the current age of political populism. In accordance with the dual mandate of both price stability and maximum sustainable employment, most central banks seek to solve the dynamic consistency problem on the basis of a key desire to insulate monetary policy decisions from political influence.

A landmark empirical study of cross-country comparisons by Alberto Alesina and Lawrence Summers confirms that countries with better central bank independence experience lower inflation without suffering any real economic output or labor force penalty. An independent central bank can enhance fiscal discipline by reducing the relative likelihood of fiscal dominance and monetization of perennial budget deficits.

Historical experience and economic theory teach us an informative lesson. When monetary policy is subject to political control, people expect dovish expansionary interest rate adjustments and so anticipate higher wages and prices in response. The undesirable economic outcome is stagflation (or the worst-case scenario of both high inflation and high unemployment). It can cost prohibitive welfare losses for the central bank to bring down inflation with subsequent interest rate hikes. Key credible apolitical monetary policy decisions would thus promote price stability with minimal real impact on economic growth, employment, and capital investment.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Can the Chinese renminbi become the next dual global reserve currency in addition to the American dollar?

Daphne Basel

2020-08-01 07:28:00 Saturday ET

Can the Chinese renminbi become the next dual global reserve currency in addition to the American dollar?

Technological advances, geopolitical risks, and pandemic outbreaks cannot shake investor confidence in the American dollar as the global reserve currency.

+See More

The top Sino-U.S. tech titans now reach the trademark total market capitalization of $4 trillion as of July 2018.

Fiona Sydney

2018-07-07 10:33:00 Saturday ET

The top Sino-U.S. tech titans now reach the trademark total market capitalization of $4 trillion as of July 2018.

The east-west tech rivalry intensifies between BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) and FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). These Sino-U.S.

+See More

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America.

Jacob Miramar

2019-06-27 10:39:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America.

Berkeley tax economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez find fresh insights into wealth inequality in America. Their latest estimates show that the top 0.1

+See More

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Amy Hamilton

2018-03-17 09:35:00 Saturday ET

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. In a Facebook pos

+See More

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China.

James Campbell

2019-01-09 07:33:00 Wednesday ET

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China.

Apple revises down its global sales revenue estimate to $83 billion due to subpar smartphone sales in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook points out the fact that he

+See More

Apple releases the new iOS 13 smartphone features.

John Fourier

2019-07-01 12:35:00 Monday ET

Apple releases the new iOS 13 smartphone features.

Apple releases the new iOS 13 smartphone features. These features include Dark Mode, Audio Share, Memoji, better privacy protection, smart photo collection,

+See More