Defying gravity: why SBP must hold its ground
There is growing pressure on the central bank from the authorities in the twin cities to lower interest rates and simultaneously appreciate the exchange rate. Meanwhile, the State Bank of…
SBP’s over-cautious and lopsided monetary policy
In their August 2024 published article ‘Understanding the international rise and fall of inflation since 2020’ in the ‘Journal of Monetary Economics’, three writers from the Research Department of International…
Monetary crossroads: how far can SBP push the rate cuts?
The monetary policy is due next Monday. The committee, chaired by the SBP Governor, has already eased the policy rate by 900 bps (or 41 percent) over the last five…
Privatisation and SBP
Heads should roll in the aftermath of the fiasco of the Thursday bidding of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) as there were ample prior indications that an extremely embarrassing failure awaited…
Perils of direct SBP credit
WHY is direct lending by the State Bank of Pakistan to the government mostly harmful? And why is government borrowing from commercial banks less harmful, despite being a bit more…
Understanding SBP autonomy
STATE Bank autonomy is a topic that needs serious discussion rather than judgments passed out of context. Should there be reform in order to access loans from donors or the…
Did SBP and IMF get inflation wrong?
Following the recent approval by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board to release the final tranche of SDR828 million (approximately $1.1 billion) under the standby agreement for Pakistan, Deputy…
Hawkish SBP, happy IMF
Some say it was stubborn food inflation that forced SBP’s hand at the MPC, combining with the usual Ramazan effect and typical incompetence of price monitoring committees to rule out…
SBP projections for 2023-24
The Annual Report for 2022-23 on the State of the Economy by the SBP has been released recently. Along with a detailed review of developments on various fronts of the…
SBP’s newfound realism
The recent meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) has led to the decision to raise the policy rate by 100 basis points…
