João Amador, Joana Garcia, Arnaud Mehl and Martin Schmitz in this ECB paper look at dominance of US Dollar in services trade: We analyze, for the first time, how firms choose the currency in which they price transactions in international trade of services and investigate, using direct evidence, whether the US dollar (USD) plays a ..read more

Saurabh Nath, Dipak R. Chaudhari, Vikram Rajput and Gaurav Tiwari in this RBI Bulletin (Apr 24) article: This article analyses the trend in India’s foreign exchange (FX) reserves during major high volatility episodes viz., Global Financial Crisis, Eurozone debt crisis/ Taper Tantrum, EME outflows/ US-China trade war and the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict / monetary policy tightening ..read more

Ferdinand Dreher of ECB in this article looks at people’s trust in the central bank On aggregate, according to the Eurobarometer, trust in the ECB held up relatively well during the pandemic and in the period of heightened inflation thereafter. Average trust across euro area countries declined significantly during the global financial crisis and the sovereign ..read more

Regulatory communications are complex, boring and difficult to understand. Nishita Raje, Khaijamang Mate, Sayli Londhe and Sandhya Kuruganti of RBI study the Linguistic Complexity of Regulatory Communicationin India: With increased scope and scale of regulation, there is growing awareness for adoption of simple or plain language in central bank’s regulations. This article attempts to measure ..read more

RBI recently rejected two applications that had applied for Small Finance Bank licences. My piece in Deccan Herald on the struggles of getting bank licences ..read more

ECB President Christine Lagarde in this speech  poinst to the power of ideas and how ideas shape history. By inspiring action, ideas can help us grow. This might be personal growth – a student’s learning, say, allowing them to make the right decisions throughout their future career. But it holds at the societal level too ..read more

Iñaki Aldasoro, Sebastian Doerr, Leonardo Gambacorta and Daniel Rees in this BIS paper estimate impact of AI on output and employment: This paper studies the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on sectoral and aggregate employment, output and inflation in both the short and long run. We construct an index of industry exposure to AI to calibrate a macroeconomic multi-sector ..read more

IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report – April 2024 has a chapter on private credit: Chapter 2 assesses vulnerabilities and potential risks to financial stability in private credit, a rapidly growing asset class—traditionally focused on providing loans to mid-sized firms outside the realms of either commercial banks or public debt markets—that now rivals other major credit ..read more

IMF Fiscal Monitor April 2024 reviews fiscal policy in the great election year. Even as the global economic outlook is stabilizing, fiscal policy continues to struggle with legacies of high debt and deficits, while facing new challenges. Public finances risks are acute this year as over 80 economies and economic areas are holding elections, amid ..read more

Nice interview of Prof Ulrike Malmendier of University of California. She explains how past experiences influene present current economics decisions: Turning to your research, one of the things you’ve found is that people’s likelihood of buying a home rather than renting is influenced by their experiences with inflation. Please explain. Malmendier: I’ll step back for the bigger ..read more