Heard Enough Central Bank Talk? Get Ready for More
Monetary chiefs are in the firing line for their errors. But turning inward isn’t the solution.
Central bankers will be doing more talking.
Photographer: Michael Putland/Getty Images
Central banks are still in the doghouse, and are likely to be for a considerable period. No opportunity to re-litigate the pandemic and its immediate aftermath is too small to forgo, at least for the politicians who oversee monetary authorities. It’s all well and good to hold enormously powerful institutions to account, but the point-scoring can get in the way of serious discussion about the path forward.
Recent testimony by Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair, to UK lawmakers was nominally about his review into the Bank of England’s forecasting. Time and again, the Nobel laureate had to steer the conversation back to the basics: improving projections, conveying them effectively to the public — and giving a proper airing to the risks around that outlook. Few things could be more important to the future of policymaking, given the elevated role of communications everywhere.