“Unconventional” monetary policy: A “snake pit”

Yesterday Lars wrote about the confusion central bankers are enmeshed in:

Therefore it is completely meaningless to talk about quantitative easing as being “unconventional” monetary policy. However, what is “unconventional” is when central bankers think that credit policy is monetary policy.

So when the ECB for example is intervening in the European sovereign bond market to distort the relative prices of for example Spanish and Germans government bond then that is credit policy. Particularly as the ECB consistently has said that any such operations will be “sterilized” – hence, the ECB will ensure that its operations have no impact on the money base. But again that is not “unconventional” monetary policy. It is not monetary policy at all – it is credit policy.

So Mr. Jean Pisani-Ferry, Commissioner-General for Policy Planning in Paris, would do well to read that post. He asks:

Can the ECB do more? Having acted boldly since the summer of 2012 to preserve the eurozone’s integrity, it has felt compelled not to antagonize policy hawks and to err on the side of caution in formulating its monetary strategy. This is an uncomfortable middle way.

Read the whole article here.

About the Author

Marcus Nunes
João Marcus Marinho Nunes is a partner of Phynance Estratégias Quantitativas e Investimentos and a professor of Economics at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo, Brazil. He also blogs here: http://thefaintofheart.wordpress.com/

Be the first to comment on "“Unconventional” monetary policy: A “snake pit”"

Leave a comment