Tag Archives: International Monetary System

At the conclusion of a recent star-studded IMF conference, chief economist Olivier Blanchard argued that we may need negative real interest rates for a long time. Here is the passage in full: “Now let me now turn to monetary policy, and touch on three issues: the implications of the liquidity trap, the provision of liquidity,…
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To mark publication of the “bigger and better” 360-page paperback (at £16.99 from Amazon, with a new 38-page preface) this and the following  posts list the book’s main themes, by Chapter, each with an update. Seen from November 2013, how have recent developments changed the analysis and/or policy prescription? Currrent Economic Outlook Although the short…
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Recognising the public demand for reform, governments began a search for alternative policy models and structures soon after the outbreak of the global financial crisis (GFC). This can be viewed at national, regional and international levels. 5. Improving National Policies: At the national level this has taken the form of supplementing inflation targeting with various…
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Under present arrangements, finance too often acts as a malevolent force, rewarding private sectional interests at the expense of the public interest. This is because the globalisation of markets has run ahead of our power to control them. Properly harnessed, global finance could be, again, an enormously powerful force for good. Designing such a harness…
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We need two, inter-related, big reforms – first to the official international monetary system and secondly to banking/financial markets. The international monetary system The first class of reforms needs to start at the beginning – with new reflection on the true nature of money. This is the most fundamental, and yet unavoidable, question raised by…
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  Apart from the nomination of Janet Yellen  ( a lovely, motherly person) to lead the Fed, what has happened since we departed for our summer/autumn long vacation? As always, the view one takes depends on your perspective. Are you the driver of a car negotiating tricky twists and turns, looking for traffic coming at…
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I do not suppose that central bankers like to be compared to witches, but for my money the best account of how the financial crisis came about is in Macbeth. Banquo warns Macbeth to be wary of the witches’ implied promises: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us…
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Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute is the “enfant terrible” of US international monetary and economic debate. Fending off the passing years, it is a role he has played with great panache for the best part of half a century. Always at the centre of things, always provocative, frequently infuriating, he has, as head of the…
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Governments’ failure to manage the global financial crisis is having profound political and geo-political consequences – all of them adverse. Fuelled by political desperation to boost demand, national monetary policies are becoming steadily more aggressive – not so much “beggar my neighbour” as “sauve qui peut”. Financial repression is ongoing. As we all know, once…
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  Ever since the end of Bretton Woods, exchange rate volatility driven by diverse monetary policies and diverse expectations about future exchange rates have been frequent sources of shocks to the world economy and national economies. The very existence of independent central banks with independent monetary policies is the common origin of shocks. The more…
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