Housing boom in Auckland – repeat of US housing market collapse?

On New Zealand’s TVONE last night the current affairs programme “Sunday” ran a segment on the booming property market in Auckland. There were some interesting interviews with real estate people plus economists – namely BNZ Chief Economist Tony Alexander and New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) Principal Economist Shamubeel Eaqub. The economists were a lot more rational in their thoughts as to buying a house – for example:

* Have you actually done the sums?
* Can you afford to repay the mortgage if there is a 3% interest rate increase?
* We could see a US style housing collapse.
* Auctions are a good example of buying on emotion with all the hype.

Loads of behavioural economics in the programme. You should be able to see the following:

Herding – People tend to follow the herd, especially information is uncertain, incomplete, and asymmetric (some people are more informed than others).

Relative Positioning – is a concern people have regrading their own economic and social status relative to other people.

Overconfidence – is a belief, fed by emotions, that you can predict movements better than you actually can. When you’re overconfident, you’re not as smart as you think you are.

Institutional Failure – Investment decisions that can be bad for society but good for the individual can be a product of the institutional environment. If decision makers face little or no downside risk when making very risky decisions, they’ll take those risks.

Here is the link to the programme – “Sunday – Going, Going, Going”

Stockmarkets v 10 Year Government Bonds

Here are some statistics that I got from the New Zealand Herald that show investment in the stockmarket has been outperforming 10 year government bonds. The table below shows Bond rates v stockmarket dividend yields over the last 12 months to May 2013. Investors seem to be more comfortable about European economies as they don’t have to offer higher yields on Bonds to attract investors. The countries that have seen a significant drop in rates are Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Also note the very low interest rates which threatens a liquidity trap. This is a situation where monetary policy becomes ineffective. Cutting the rate of interest is supposed to be the escape route from economic recession: boosting the money supply, increasing demand and thus reducing unemployment. But John Maynard Keynes argued that sometimes cutting the rate of interest, even to zero, would not help. People, banks and firms could become so risk averse that they preferred the liquidity of cash to offering credit or using the credit that is on offer. In such circumstances, the economy would be trapped in recession, despite the best efforts of monetary policy makers.

NZD drops after RBNZ Governor speech

I was fortunate enough to attend the Institute of Directors breakfast where RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler was the guest speaker. He spent a lot of time focussing on the overvalued NZD and that keeping the OCR low is a an effort to weaken its value. He did mention that the RBNZ has intervened in the FX market by buying foreign currency with NZD – supply increases therefore value should drop. In assessing whether to intervene in the exchange market, the RBNZ apply four criteria.

1. Is the exchange rate at an exceptional level,
2. Whether its level is justifiable,
3. Is intervention consistent with monetary policy, and
4. Are market conditions conducive to intervention having an impact.

This last factor is especially important given the volume of trading in the Kiwi. In the most recent survey – April 2010 – by the Bank for International Settlements, the Kiwi was the tenth most traded currency in the world with daily turnover of spot and forward exchange transactions totaling around USD $27 billion.

“We can only hope to smooth the peaks off the exchange rate and diminish investor perceptions that the New Zealand dollar is a one-way bet, rather than attempt to influence the trend level of the Kiwi.” Graeme Wheeler – RBNZ Governor

See the graph below for the value of the NZD after his speech.

ECB contemplating negative interest rates.

Recently the European Central Bank cut its refinancing rate by 25 basis points to 0.5% which is a record low. The catalyst for this rate cut was the continuation of the decline in the manufacturing sector of the EU. Although this lower interest rate did improve the mood of investors ECB President Mario Draghi did hint at the prospect of negative interest rates on deposits at the ECB. This would mean that trading banks would pay for the privilege of parking their money in the ECB. What are the options for banks?

1. The ECB’s thinking is that banks wouldn’t want to pay interest to the ECB and therefore would try and lend money to consumers which would stimulate growth in the real economy.
2. The banks could stop depositing money at the ECB and simply keep it themselves – like a consumer you would keep money ‘under your mattress’.
3. The banks could continue to deposit money at the ECB and pass on the cost of negative interest rate to the consumers who borrow. This would likely reduce the level of borrowing which is exactly what the ECB don’t want.

With the US economy starting to grow is QE a more applicable policy instrument for the EU economy? Will Draghi follow Bernanke? Its seem that he is not keen on the ‘helicopter drop’ but with a 0.5% refinance rate what other options are available?

Inflation – A thief in your wallet. RBNZ video.

Just published on their website, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has prepared a short video explaining inflation. The video, featuring the Bank’s Head of Economics, John McDermott, explains how inflation is measured and how it manifests itself in everyday life. It also explains the importance of maintaining price stability. Well worth a look.

10 Reasons not to use Quantitative Easing (QE)

Nouriel Roubini wrote a piece on the Project Syndicate site focusing on the costs of QE. After three rounds of QE one wonders about its effectiveness. Roubini came up with 10 potential costs.

1. QE policies just postpones the necessary private and public sector deleveraging and if this is left too long it can create a zombie economy – institutions, firms, governments etc lose their ability to function.  
2. Economic activity in the circular flow may become clogged with bond yields being so low and banks hoarding liquidity. Therefore the velocity of money circulation grinds to a halt.
3. With more money in the economy this implies a weakening of the currency but this is ineffective if other economies use QE at the same time. QE becomes a zero-sum game as not all currencies can fall simultaneously. QE = Currency Wars
4. QE leads to excessive capital to emerging markets. This can lead to a lot of extra liquidity and feed into domestic inflation creating asset bubbles. Furthermore an appreciation of the domestic currency in emerging markets makes their exports less competitive.
5. QE can lead to asset bubbles in an economy where it is implemented. It is especially prevalent when you’ve had an aggressive expansionary monetary policy (1% in USA after 9/11) already present in the economy for many years prior.
6. QE encourages Moral Hazard – governments put off major economic reforms and resort to a band aid policy. May delay fiscal austerity and ill discipline in the market.
7. Exiting QE is important – too slow an exit could mean higher inflation and assets and credit bubbles are created.
8. Long periods of negative real interest rates implies a redistribution of income and wealth – creditors and savers to debtors and borrowers. QE damages pensioners and pension funds.
9. With QE excessive inflation accompanied by slow credit growth, banks are faced with very low net interest-rate margins. Therefore, they might put money into riskier investments – remember the sub-prime crisis, oil prices up $147/barrel
10. QE might mean the end of conventional monetary policy. Some countries have discarded inflationary targets and there is no cornerstone for price expectations.

What to do about an overvalued exchange rate?

There has been numerous mentions in the media about the need to reduce the strength of the NZ$. RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler outlined some of these in a recent speech. He identified the following policy responses:

1. Lowering Interest Rates

By lower interest rates you may reduce pressure on the exchange rate as long as the new rate is uncompetitive to those in other countries. However a one-off reduction in the interest rate which conflicts wtih the policy of the central bank’s inflation target could lead to expectations of a subsequent reversal. Examples of when it hasn’t work:

Australia – since the end of 2010 RBA cut its official cash rate by 1.75% – no significant impact on the AUS$.
Japan – on the other hand the Yen actually appreicated by over 30% between February 2007 and November 2012 when the interest rates was lowered to 0 – 0.1%.
Switzerland – The Swiss Franc appreciated by 20% between Jan 2010 – July 2011 despite interest rates being lowered between 0 – 0.75%

2. Intervening in the Foreign Exchange Market

The RBNZ have 4 criteria it uses to decide whether to intervene in the foreign exchange market.
1. Is the exchange rate at an exceptional level?
2. Is its value justified?
3. Is intervention justified with current monetary policy?
4. Are market conditions conducive to achieving the desired outcome?

Global exchange rate turnover is between US$4 -5 trillion per day and it is estimated that the NZ$ is the 10th most traded currency in the world. The RBNZ has indicated that it is prepared to intervene but can only attempt to smooth the peaks of the US$ – NZ$ exchange rate.

3. Quantitative Easing – printing money.

This has been adopted by the US central bank in response to teh global financial crisis. However New Zealand was not exposed to risky investments to the extent that other countries were. New Zealand’s challenges are different from those in the US, Euro zone etc. The printing of more money would put upward pressure on inflation, especially asset prices, and ultimately lead to higher interest rates.

4. Cap the exchange rate – the Swiss experience

The Swiss National Bank spent had some success in capping the Swiss franc to the Euro – SFr 1.2 – 1 euro. This woud be very risky for New Zealand – Swiss lost approximately
NZ$35bn in the process. New Zealand would need to intervene to the same extent and the interest rates would need to drop to 0% also. The capping would amount to quantitative easing which with 0% interest rates would be inflationary.

Graeme Wheeler finished up by saying:

The New Zealand economy currently faces an overvalued exchange rate and overheating house prices in parts of the country, especially Auckland. The Reserve Bank will be consulting with the financial sector next month on macro-prudential instruments. These instruments are designed to make the financial system more resilient and to reduce systemic risk by constraining excesses in the financial cycle. They can help to reduce volatile credit cycles and asset bubbles, including overheating housing markets, and support the stance of monetary policy, which could be helpful in alleviating pressure on the exchange rate at the margin.

The ‘Output Gap” explained

I have being going over the theory behind the output gap and here is an explanation – written a few years ago. Probably not so applicable to the economic environment today

Just as Messrs Friedman and Phelps had predicted, the level of inflation associated with a given level of unemployment rose through the 1970s, and policymakers had to abandon the Phillips curve. Today there is a broad consensus that monetary policy should focus on holding down inflation. But this does not mean, as is often claimed, that central banks are “inflation nutters”, cruelly indifferent towards unemployment.

If there is no long-term trade-off, low inflation does not permanently choke growth. Moreover, by keeping inflation low and stable, a central bank, in effect, stabilises output and jobs. In the graph below the straight line represents the growth in output that the economy can sustain over the long run; the wavy line represents actual output. When the economy is producing below potential (ie, unemployment is above the NAIRU), at point A, inflation will fall until the “output gap” is eliminated. When output is above potential, at point B, inflation will rise for as long as demand is above capacity. If inflation is falling (point A), then a central bank will cut interest rates, helping to boost growth in output and jobs; when inflation is rising (point B), it will raise interest rates, dampening down growth. Thus if monetary policy focuses on keeping inflation low and stable, it will automatically help to stabilise employment and growth.

To cut, increase or status quo – that is the question.

The BNZ Markets Outlook looked at reasons why Graeme Wheeler, the RBNZ Governor, might keep a ‘steady as she goes’ attitude to Thursday’s OCR review. Below are some thoughts as to why he could be swayed to increase or decrease the OCR rate.

With all that said it is expected that Graeme Wheeler will leave the OCR unchanged at 2.5%.

Lower Interest Rates – what should be happening?

With near zero interest rates in the US and the promise of them to remain until 2015 those that are living off the interest on savings, mainly the retired, are finding their incomes squeezed. According to The Economist personal interest income has plummeted by 30% which equates to a $432bn annually and more than 4% of disposable income. Former IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan describes the Fed’s policy as:

“expropriating responsible savers in favour of irresponsible banks”

How should lower interest rates work according to the textbook?

However today it seems that even with these really low interest rates businesses and consumers don’t want to borrow or cannot qualify due to the more stringent requirements required. Furthermore with less consumption in the circular flow you would think that there is less need to fuel anymore investment spending.

The US Fed needs to be aware of its actions

With current central bank interest rates at very low levels there is concern that these policies have been fueling credit and asset price booms in some emerging economies. However, potentially there could be significant fallout of the unwinding of these booms on developed nations.

How do Capital Flows impact on an economy?
When you have long periods of loose monetary policy (including low interest rates), like that in the US 0-0.25% – since September 11 2001 the US Federal Reserve has implemented a near zero rate policy which is now expected to last until 2014. According to Stanford University Professor John Taylor this results in the following:

1 Investors look elsewhere to gain higher returns and buy foreign securities and
2 Low interest rates encourage overseas firms to borrow in US dollars rather than in their domestic currency – US branch offices of foreign banks raised over $645 billion to make loans in overseas countries.

This flow of money means that the strength of the local currency starts to appreciate as foreign firms exchange their borrowed US$ and for the domestic currency. With this appreciation, the central bank becomes concerned with the affect the higher currency is having on the exchange rate and therefore export competitiveness.

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The above is a brief extract from an article published in this month’s econoMAX – click below to subscribe to econoMAX the online magazine of Tutor2u. Each month there are 8 articles of around 600 words on current economic issues.

econoMAX

Unemployment worries for New Zealand economy

Figures out today show that the unemployment rate increased by 0.5% from the previous quarter to 7.3% – see ASB Bank graph.. This was a concern considering the market expectation was a reduction of 0.1% to 6.7%. The main fall was in Auckland where employment fell by 2% and this should mean that new Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler will hold off on any increase until late next year. A reduction in the OCR is unlikely unless there is further deterioration on overseas markets.

Remember the types of unemployment

Frictional – The unemployment that inevitably results from the process of job-seeking. It will exist under conditions of generally so-called full-employment conditions (see employment, full), but it is not precisely clear what proportion of total unemployment can be called frictional.

Structural - Unemployment arising from changes in demand or technology which lead to an oversupply of labour with particular skills or in particular locations. Structural unemployment does not result from an overall deficiency of demand and therefore cannot be cured by reflation, but only by retraining or relocation of the affected work-force, some of which may find work at low wages in unskilled occupations.

Cyclical – Demand-deficient unemployment occurs when there is not enough demand to employ all those who want to work. It is a type that Keynesian economists focus on particularly, as they believe it happens when there is a disequilibrium in the economy.

Seasonal - Some workers, such as construction workers or workers in the tourist industry, tend to work on a seasonal basis. Seasonal unemployment tends to rise in winter when some these workers will be laid off, whilst unemploymnet falls is summer when they are taken on again.

Japan pours more fuel on the ‘dull’ embers

The New York Times recently reported that the Japanese authorities are once again trying to stimulate a rather moribund economy with injecting more money into the circular flow.

* A ¥11 trillion is to be added to an asset buying programme
* The Bank of Japan will supply banks with cheap long-term funds in the hope of stimulating borrowing.
* Base interest rate to stay at 0-0.1% – see graph below
* These measures will stay in place until inflation has reached at least 1% – Bank of Japan forecast of this figure is March 2014.

There has been some return to growth with the reconstruction after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. However global demand has declines and the issue of territory with China hasn’t helped – Japanese goods are not being favoured by Chinese consumers. Japan’s deflationary decade hasn’t been helped with a contracting population and monetary policy needs to be accompanied by government fiscal policy as private sector companies don’t have the confidence to invest in major expansions. To this end the government have thrown money at the economy to the tune of ¥422.6 billion (in the form of government spending) but this is already twice the size of the Japanese economy. A strengthening yen hasn’t helped matters as exporters find their products uncompetitive.

Anatomy of an Irish bubble

Michael O’Sullivan wrote an interesting chapter in “Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis” about Ireland’s bubble. He talked about the anatomy of a bubble and went through various examples from history. There are 3 stages of the bubble which he describes:

Stage 1 – Favourable shock

The Favourable Shock – in many cases this a change in economic policy or a technological shift. Examples:

The Mississippi bubble – the creation of paper money
Railways booms in the US and UK during the 19th Century
Dot.com bubble – 1990’s
Foreign Direct Investment – Ireland 1990’s

The above events enhance expectations of future economic growth and earning potential. What helps turn the boom into a bubble is the ease of credit – expansionary monetary policy (low interest rates), relaxed lending conditions etc. This then leads to rising asset values which allows corporate and the household sector the ability to take on more debt (leverage). In Ireland real interest rates (Interest rate – CPI) was 0% in 1998-2001 and was approximately -4% in 2000.

Stage 2 – Speculative growth

The Speculative Stage is one where the ecstatic enthusiasm for risk chases high returns and investment becomes speculation. A quote from J.M.Keynes describes the change in mood:

As the bubble gains momentum some people come to believe there is a greater fool who would buy their inflated assets. With this aura of confidence and supporting arguments from the periphery – e.g. “the world has changed” or “this time it’s different” – a mood of speculative optimism becomes rampant. An example of this positive rhetoric was from former Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern. He stated that those warning of the property bubble should “commit suicide”.

Stage 3 – Irrational Exuberance

Irrational Exuberance starts to dominate the “herd” and often this stage sees the sharpest and most bewildering rise in asset prices. However, there comes a time when this sort of frenzied activity cannot be maintained and eventually the bubble bursts. Most bubbles end with a tightening of monetary policy – higher interest rates – credit controls – limited borrowing potential. For Ireland, as was the case with other economies, the global financial crisis was the “lighting of the fuse”

The Irish Credit Bubble
Morgan Kelly wrote a paper on this and below is a chart from the book “Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis” which shows how bank lending assisted the bubble. In 1997 Irish bank lending to the non-financial private sector was only 60% of GNP compared with 80% in most eurozone economies and the UK. By 2008 bank lending grew to 200% of national income. Irish banks were lending 40% more in real terms to property developers alone in 2008 than they had been lending to everyone in Ireland in 2000, and 75% more as mortgages.

QE3 and ECB bond purchase is not the elixir for recovery – Stiglitz

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz came out strongly against the recent QE3 by the US Fed and the ECB’s announcement that it would buy government bonds of indebted eurozone member countries. With this announcement stock prices in the US reached post-recession highs although some worried about future inflation and significant government spending. According to Stiglitz these concerns are unwarranted as there is so much underutilisation and no serious risk of inflation. But the US Fed and the ECB sent three clear messages:

1. Previous actions didn’t work – ie QE1 and 2
2. The US Fed announcement that it will keep rates low until 2015 and buy $40bn worth of mortgage backed securities suggested the recovery is not going to take place soon.
3. The Fed and the ECB are saying that the markets won’t restore full employment soon – fiscal stimulus is needed.

In textbook economics increased liquidity means more lending, mostly to investors thereby shifting the AD curve to the right and thereby increasing demand and employment. But if you consider Spain an increase in liquidity will be cancelled out by an austerity package.

For both Europe and America, the danger now is that politicians and markets believe that monetary policy can revive the economy. Unfortunately, its main impact at this point is to distract attention from measures that would truly stimulate growth, including an expansionary fiscal policy and financial-sector reforms that boost lending. Joseph Stiglitz

More calls for reducing the value of the NZ dollar – but how?

The recent job summit called by Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) focused on the strength of the NZ dollar and the impact it is having on manufacturing jobs in the New Zealand economy. This has been area that the opposition parties have targeted especially the Greens. Although a weaker dollar would make exports more competitive there are concerns about the mechanism used to achieve. Certain procedures to reduce the value of a currency have been well documented. They are as follows:

1. Quantitive Easing – printing money.

You need to look no further than the US economy to to see what has been the impact of 3 rounds of QE. Although the US dollar fell after QE1 in late 2008 a lot of could be said to have been caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and others around that time. QE2 in November 2010 correlated with the fall in the US dollar but again some have indicated that this was a result of the US economy being energised by the Federal Reserve and therefore it was safe to buy risky investments (US dollar seen as safe). You don’t have to look for another example where QE has had a limited impact – Japan since 2001. Here the Japanese authorities have found that QE has seen the Yen strengthen.

2. RBNZ enter the foreign exchange market and buy NZ dollars with currency reserves

This has been tried before with little success – equilibrium is restored at pre-intervention levels and the venture has proved very costly. Furthermore, there is the specter of inflation to contend with in years to come. The currency value has been more influenced by which stage of the business cycle the NZ economy is sitting at. In the 1990’s the Bank of Japan has spent billions of dollars trying to stop the appreciation of the Yen against the US dollar. The Swiss National Bank had to spend the equivalent to 70% of its GDP buying euros to cap the Swiss franc.

3. Drop the Reserve Bank’s Official Cash Rate (OCR)

When an economy’s interest rates are relatively high compared to other economies there is the incentive to park your currency where you get higher returns i.e. borrow from Japan at near 0% and investing in Australia at 5%. However lower interest rates doesn’t necessarily mean a lower exchange rate – the Reserve Bank of Australia has dropped rates from 4.75% to 3.25% over the last couple of years but the Aussie dollar hasn’t moved. This is most likely due to the mining boom.

4. Contractionary Fiscal Policy

As Don Brash (Former RBNZ Governor) stated in the NZ Herald, the best way of reducing the value of the NZ dollar would be for the government returning to a surplus by reducing government spending and increasing taxes. This would take money out of the circular flow and therefore reduce aggregate demand. With inflation nearing the bottom of the target range the RBNZ would be forced to reduce the OCR and ultimately the NZ dollar without the threat of inflation.

Getting the exchange rate down is a very complex task and it seems that the foreign exchange market doesn’t punish negative figures of economic indicators i.e. high inflation. I suppose a increase in the value of the NZ dollar is due to our desire to fund our spending from overseas borrowing.

Reserve Bank of Australia likely to ease cash rate

With continued global weakness the RBA is becoming increasingly worried about the prospects for the Australian economy. According to the National Bank of Australia there are 3 factors that the RBA are concerned with:

1. Although house prices are stabilising there are some sectors of the economy that remain in a depressed state – residential construction has a record low capacity utilisation (see graph).
2. A tightening of state and federal fiscal policy has meant that there is less aggregate demand in the economy.
3. The high value of the AUS$ affects the competitiveness of exports. However business now see the high AUS$ as permanent rather than cyclical. This is important as the RBA is not expecting lower rates to significantly lower the AUS$ but rather is trying to offset some of the economic damage to the economy.

It could be that a rate cut by the RBA is an insurance policy in an environment where inflation appears stable. The graph below looks at the RBA Cash Rate and the Taylor Rule.

The Taylor Rule

This is a specific policy rule for fixing interest rates proposed by the Stanford University economist John Taylor. Taylor argued that when:

Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) = Potential Gross Domestic Product and
Inflation = its target rate of 2%,

then the Federal Funds Rate (FFR) should be 4% (that is a 2% real interest rate).

If the real GDP rises 1% above potential GDP, then the FFR should be raised by 0.5%.
If inflation rises 1% above its target rate of 2%, then the FFR should be raised by 0.5%.

This rule has been suggested as one that could be adopted by other central banks – ECB, Bank of England, etc for setting official cash rates. However, the rule does embody an arbitrary 2% inflation target rather than, say 3% or 4%, and it may need to be amended to embody alternative inflation targets at different times or by different central banks. The advantages of having such as explicit interest rate rule is that its very transparency can create better conditions for business decisions and can help shape business people’s and consumers’ expectations. Central banks prefer to maintain an air of intelligent discretion over the conduct of their policies than to follow rules, but to some extent they do unwittingly follow a Taylor rule. This makes the rule a useful benchmark against which actual policies can be judged.

Bernanke turns on the taps once again – NZ$ on the rise

It is the US Fed’s intention to buy volumes of mortgage backed securities and keep borrowing rates at near zero (0-0.25%) until the job market and broader economy pick up. Basically they are going to print money until there is some improvement in unemployment figures. Unemployment is at 8.1% and the Fed estimate that it will fall no lower than 7.6% in 2013 and 6.7 in 2014. Inflation is forecast to remain at or below 2% until 2015.

How does it work?
The Fed will buy $40 billion a month in mortgages and will keep doing this until unemployment starts to fall. This will have a couple of effects:

1. It might lower mortgages rates by another 0.25% (already quite low). The 30-year mortgage rate is 3.5% and could go down to 3.25%
2. When mortgage rates go down, the price of houses tends to go up which is beneficial even if you are not refinancing a mortgage
3. Investors tend to move out of low interest earning investments and put their money into stocks. The DJIA closed up more than 200 points and was 625 points off its all-time high.

Impact on NZ$
With the flood of US$ into the market this has put downward pressure on the US$ which will make its export market more competitive and imports more expensive. However risk currencies like the NZ$ and AUS$ have rallied. Looking at the NZ$, this has appreciated considerably against the US$ and will make NZ exports more expensive and NZ imports cheaper. This will not only hurt the export industry as the price of goods become more expensive but the domestic sector have now got to compete with cheaper imports. The NZ$ reached US$0.84 yesterday.

Stimulus doesn’t get unemployment figures down

Here is an interesting graph from the Economist “Free Exchange” column. What the article states is that all these stimulus actions haven’t led to any sort of growth but higher levels of unemployment – see graph.

There has been many research papers as to why this has happened. Here are some of the findings from them:

1. One school of thought is that a high unemployment rate is structural and immune to the stimulative effects of monetary policy.

2. That the US Fed commit to keeping policy easy until the economy reaches a particular target, such as nominal GDP (ie, output unadjusted for inflation) returning to its pre-recession path.

3. The Bank of England is doing by providing subsidised credit to banks that lend more.

4. Monetary easing usually works by encouraging businesses and households to move future consumption and investment forward to today. But it also has “redistributive” effects. For example, low short-term interest rates redistribute income from depositors to banks, which allows them to rebuild capital and encourages them to lend more.

5. Raising banks’ profits has not done much to restart demand because the real problem is that indebted households cannot or will not borrow. There is evidence that retail spending and car sales have been weaker in states that entered the recession with higher household debt.

With the Fed now looking at QE3 and the ECB discussing a resumption in purchases of bonds of peripheral euro-zone members one wonders if “more of the same” will have any impact on unemployment.

Every Breath You Take – Every Change of Rate (Fed Funds Rate)

Here is a really funny video by the students of Columbia Business School (CBS) – you may have seen it before but I find it very useful when you start teaching monetary policy and interest rates.

Back in 2006 Alan Greenspan vacated the role of chairman of the US Federal Reserve and the two main candidates for the job were Ben Bernanke and Glenn Hubbard. Glen Hubbard was (and still is) the Dean at Columbia Business School and was no doubt disappointed about losing out to Ben Bernanke. His students obviously felt a certain amount of sympathy for him and used the song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police to voice their opinion as to who should have got the job. They have altered the lyrics and the lead singer plays Glenn Hubbard.

Some significant economic words in it are: – interest rates, stagflate, inflate, bps, jobs, growth etc.