Japan’s policymakers hold fire as yen enters intervention range
As the yen slid past 145 per dollar with barely a murmur from Japanese policymakers during recent days, suspicion grew that they won’t be as quick to order intervention as…
Policymakers scramble as Trump’s trade war widens
Longstanding warnings from economists of global spillover from the US-China trade war appear to be materialising, with a trio of central banks springing surprise rate cuts on Wednesday and bond…
ECB policymakers debate new ways out of easy money
European Central Bank policymakers are debating ways to wean the euro zone off years of easy money, floating ideas such as a new kind of multi-year loans and staggered increases…
Document relevant for policymakers?
The Economic Survey 2014-15 contains, in common with last year, a clear and distinct bias in favour of the government''''s performance making the document largely irrelevant for policymakers. It has…
Political audit of Afghan policy
THE latest clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces are yet another sign of the deepening rift between the two neighbours. Just three years after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul — a moment that…
Time to end neoliberal monetary policy well overdue
‘This chapter has shown that the NMPC [New Monetary Policy Consensus] is limited in four important ways. Firstly, it is based on doubtful assumptions, unwarranted generalisations, overly optimistic expectations about…
Policy rate caution
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the current economic team of the government of Pakistan must stop hiding behind a veil of overly cautious monetary policies. The latest Monetary…
BOJ bids final farewell to Kuroda’s radical policy experiment
In rare criticism of its past policies, the Bank of Japan said former governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s stimulus didn’t change consumer psychology as much as planned, continuing a symbolic shift away…
For dealmakers, regulatory chaos would undercut Trump’s pro-business tilt
With any other president, promises of less regulation and lower corporate taxes would have Wall Street’s deal machine salivating at the prospect of a feeding frenzy. Not so with a…
Foreign policy adrift
CHARACTERISED by drift, Pakistan’s foreign policy appears to be rudderless. It has neither clarity nor coherence to meet complex regional and international challenges or respond to fast-moving global developments. Lacking…
