From the FT’s Gillian Tett today:
…from the 1980s, it became fashionable to presume that macroeconomic management sat in a different silo from financial regulation: the former was dominated by debates about inflation targets and interest rates; the latter focused on bank supervision.
Now the pendulum is swinging again. This week, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, warned that the rapid pace of UK house price rises could threaten the British recovery, prompting speculation that the BoE will begin to tighten policy before long…the bank’s Financial Policy Committee might well turn to so-called macroprudential measures, which are intended to prevent financial excess.
…Such regulatory meddling fell out of favour in the late 20th century. But since the 2008 financial crisis policy makers have discovered what they once knew but seemed to have forgotten: that macroeconomics cannot be divorced from finance and that it is sometimes difficult to steer the economy through interest rates alone.
…Then, last year, countries such as New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland borrowed the label, too, to describe moves they were taking to combat domestic credit bubbles. Now big western countries are catching the wave and linking financial regulation to macroeconomic management: aside from the BoE, the European Central Bank is promoting macroprudential measures, too, and the idea is being debated at the US Federal Reserve.
The article is mixed in its assessment of the efficacy of MP but ultimately endorses it. We’ll be the last to see sense it seems.
