Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Can individual central banks focusing on matching supply and demand at a national level go too far because other central banks are already weakening global demand?

See Central Banks May Stoke Risks by Raising Interest Rates Together: The most widespread rate increases on record have some economists worrying a lack of coordination may result in unnecessary economic harm by Paul Hannon of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"the number of rate increases announced by central banks around the world was the highest in July since records began in the early 1970s."

"the size of those rate rises is larger than usual."

"Those central banks are almost universally responding to high inflation. Inflation across the Group of 20 leading economies was 9.2% in July, double the rate a year earlier"

"Higher rates cool demand for goods and services and reassure households and businesses that inflation will be brought down over the coming year."

"some worry that central banks are effectively pursuing national responses to what is a global problem of excess demand and high prices. They warn that central banks as a group will thus go too far—and push the world economy into a downturn that is deeper than necessary."

"But do they all need to be doing so much if they are all doing the same thing?Most economists accept that inflation in any one country isn’t solely due to forces within that country. Global demand also affects the prices of easily traded goods and services. This has long been apparent with commodities such as oil"

"One Fed study found that U.S. fiscal stimulus raised inflation in Canada and the U.K."

"But an individual central bank’s focusing on matching supply and demand at a national level could go too far, because other central banks are already weakening the global demand that is one of the drivers of national inflation. If each central bank does so, the excess tightening globally may be significant."

"That risk could be reduced through coordination between central banks—for example, when they cut key interest rates together during the global financial crisis."

"Fed Chairman Jerome Powell noted Wednesday that central banks have coordinated interest-rate actions in the past, but that it wasn’t appropriate now when “we’re in very different situations.”"

"the World Bank advised, for national policy makers to “take into account the potential spillovers of globally synchronous domestic policies.”"

"Mr. Powell suggested that already happens. The Fed’s forecasts always take account of “policy decisions—monetary policy and otherwise [and] the economic developments that are taking place in major economies that can have an effect on the U.S. economy,” he told reporters."

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