RBNZ Turning Heads Around the Globe

“New Zealand is tiny by economic standards, but it’s a giant in central banking circles,” Forbes senior contributor William Pesek writes. “While working in Washington in the mid-to-late 1990s, I was struck by how often conversations with Federal Reserve officials turned to Wellington.”

“Taking place at Reserve Bank of New Zealand headquarters were some of the globe’s most tantalizing experiments with inflation targeting and creative central bank mandates. Fed bigwigs I interviewed regularly at the time – Alan Greenspan, Janet Yellen, Alan Blinder – could not seem to get enough of RBNZ intrigue.

“Vanguard RBNZ is at it again,” Pesek reports.

“In February, lawmakers in Wellington directed Governor Adrian Orr’s team to add housing prices to the list of key variables when making interest rate decisions. This monetary mission creep, as critics see it, is turning heads around the globe.”

Original article by William Pesek, Forbes, September 10, 2021.