The quarterly GDP data were out on Thursday. Quite how one reads them probably depends on bit on where your focus lies. To the extent that the focus is on squeezing out inflation then any data that points to excess demand dissipating a bit faster is mostly a good and welcome thing. The sooner inflation is back to […]
I guess it will be an Act by the end of the day, but for now the short bill giving effect to a return to a single statutory objective for monetary policy is here. Yesterday’s parliamentary debate (first and second reading) is here, here, and here. The heart of the bill is this clause Note […]
Inflation rates have come down since their peak in mid-2022. Does the Federal Reserve need to continue its inflation-fighting ways, keeping interest rates high? Anil Ari, Carlos Mulas-Granados, Victor Mylonas, Lev Ratnovski, and WeiZhao of the IMF look to historical and international experience in “One Hundred Inflation Shocks: Seven Stylized Facts” (September 2023, WP/23/190). As…
It doesn’t seem to have been the best week for the Reserve Bank since the release of the latest Monetary Policy Statement last Wednesday. Of course, one could make a pretty compelling case that in the Orr years few weeks have been, and especially not any weeks when Bank figures actually say or do anything. […]
But first a correction. As I noted on Twitter and very briefly on the post itself on Saturday, it seems that the gist of my post on Friday was wrong. The repeal of Labour’s tobacco de-nicotinisation legislation – whatever motivated the parties that championed the change – will leave the flow of tobacco excise revenue […]
It was in mid-August that this particular bit of shameless Reserve Bank spin got going. From a post in late August It proved to be nonsense of course. Once we had access to the short little IMF piece, published at the back of the Fund’s Article IV review, it was clear that it all amounted […]
Monday’s post was on the important place effective accountability must have when government agencies are given great discretionary power which – as is in the nature of any human institutions – they will at times exercise poorly. My particular focus is on the Reserve Bank, both because it is what I know best, because it […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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