In this compelling book, the readers can get a thought-provoking journey into the intricate world of monetary policy. At its core lies a powerful tool, meticulously crafted to capture the ever-changing heartbeat of the market. But before readers can delve into the depths of this groundbreaking tool, they must first grasp the fundamental concepts of monetary policy operations. A must read for seasoned economist, a financial analyst, or simply a curious observer of the financial world.
Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent – healthcare, education, pensions, benefits – is the centre of political and public debate. Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population divides into those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it – 'skivers' and 'strivers', 'them' and 'us'. This ground-breaking book, written by one of the UK’s leading social policy experts, uses extensive research and survey evidence to challenge that view. It shows that our complex and ever-changing lives mean that all of us rely on the welfare state throughout our lifetimes, not just a small ‘welfare-dependent’ minority. Using everyday life stories and engaging graphics, Hills clearly demonstrates how the facts are far removed from the myths. This revised edition contains fully updated data, discusses key policy changes and a new preface reflecting on the changed context after the 2015 election and Brexit vote.
Recently, monetary authorities have increasingly focused on implementing policies to ensure price stability and strengthen central bank independence. Simultaneously, in the fiscal area, market development has allowed public debt managers to focus more on cost minimization. This “divorce” of monetary and debt management functions in no way lessens the need for effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy if overall economic performance is to be optimized and maintained in the long term. This paper analyzes these issues based on a review of the relevant literature and of country experiences from an institutional and operational perspective.
The first twenty years of the European Central Bank offer a unique insight into how a central bank can navigate macroeconomic insecurity and crisis. This volume examines the structures and decision-making processes behind the complex measures taken by the ECB to tackle some of the toughest economic challenges in the history of modern Europe.
Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.
This timely volume presents the latest thinking on the monetary policy rules and seeks to determine just what types of rules and policy guidelines function best. A unique cooperative research effort that allowed contributors to evaluate different policy rules using their own specific approaches, this collection presents their striking findings on the potential response of interest rates to an array of variables, including alterations in the rates of inflation, unemployment, and exchange. Monetary Policy Rules illustrates that simple policy rules are more robust and more efficient than complex rules with multiple variables. A state-of-the-art appraisal of the fundamental issues facing the Federal Reserve Board and other central banks, Monetary Policy Rules is essential reading for economic analysts and policymakers alike.
The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it. Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change--these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there--what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable. In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.
Sovereign debt crises are a little like the weather: One can get ready to endure them and maybe take some steps to lessen their impact, but so far it hasn't been possible to prevent them. Like the weather, they just keep happening. That's the overriding thesis of this book tracing the major debt crises of the past century, starting with the Great Depression and running through the recent Great Recession. Written by a former World Bank expert on debt crises, this book discusses best practices for how such crises can be resolved. As the painful experience of the past decade reminded everyone, frequent debt crises and defaults do great damage to economies and cause vast personal hardship. But resolving them has proven difficult—both economically and politically—and has taken time, almost always requiring a lender of last resort such as a country's central bank or the International Monetary Fund. Too often, efforts to end debt crises have been little more than a palliative, and the debt overhang from one crisis contributes to the next, as illustrated by the ongoing saga in Greece. Both private and sovereign debts have increased substantially since the 2008 crisis, with inadequate deleveraging. This debt overhang leaves countries vulnerable and with limited maneuverability to address the next crisis. This book does not pretend to describe how debt crises can be prevented. But it does draw useful lessons from recent crises that can help economists, bankers, policymakers, and others resolve the inevitable future crises with the least possible damage.
The book gives a broad coverage of the monetary policy issues in Low Financial Development Countries (LFDCs). These low and lower middle income countries are characterized by a predominance of bank finance, shallow financial markets, low financial inclusion, weak integration with world capital markets and a high degree of informality in economic activity. Monetary policy acquires special twists, making it different in many aspects from the policies followed in advanced and emerging market economies. The book covers the main facets of monetary policy making, using an approach that combines the discussion of theoretical arguments, of results from empirical studies and of policy experiences relevant for LFDCs. The book presents the monetary policy instruments they use and assesses the specificities of their monetary transmission mechanism. It evaluates the advantages, drawbacks and challenges of the different nominal anchors they may choose from: exchange rate targeting, monetary targeting and inflation targeting. This discussion is set against the background of the three main goals pursued by central banks: price, output and financial stability. Particular attention is devoted to the issue of the credibility of central banks and to the trade-offs they face when external shocks, to which these countries are very vulnerable, lead to conflicts among the three goals they pursue. The book also covers more specific topics, such as the challenges raised by fiscal dominance and by dollarization, the implications of informal labor markets and of microfinance institutions for monetary policy-making and the role of models for forecasting and policy evaluation.
