Speaker: Robert Holzmann, Governor of Austrian Central Bank (OeNB) & Member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB)

Time: 10:00am-11:30am, Thursday, July 6, 2023

Venue: Multi-function Room 420, National School of Development (Chengze Garden Campus), Peking University

If you are keen on it. Please scan the QR code to join us!


The deadline for registration is July 5th. A confirmation message will be sent upon successful registration.

Abstract

The presentation explores the policy options and research questions that emerge after the current high inflation has been tamed in Europe, USA, and other parts of the Global North. Can we go back to conventional monetary policy before 2008, when short-term policy interest rates and reserve requirements dominated the monetary toolbox? Or may we have to continue in a world of unconventional monetary policy (UMP), with a toolbox consisting of negative policy interest rates, quantitative easing, subsidized borrowing rates, and forward guidance? The answer will depend on the prospects for the natural rate of interest (r*) that has fallen in recent decades. Without a re-rise in the natural rate, we may be confined to resort to UMP in current or renewed form.  The presentation explores both monetary options under a permanent low r* and non-monetary reform options that promise to increase r*:  Increasing total factor productivity, increasing to labour supply, and increasing capital transfers from the Global North to the Global South.

Speaker

Robert Holzmann is an Austrian economist and since 2019 he is the Governor of Austria’s central bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. Before this appointment he spent half of this his long professional life of 50 years in academia (including Austria, Germany, Malaysia and Australia) and the other half in key international organizations (OECD, IMF, and World Bank).  He has published inter alia 41 books, 98 contributions to books, 51 papers in refereed journals, and many other publications on fiscal, social and monetary issues of which 6 of his books on pension issues have been translated into Chinese. He has visited over 90 countries in the world across all regions.

Source: National School of Development