Praise for International Economic Indicators and Central Banks "Anne Picker's International Economic Indicators and Central Banks is a tour de force. It brings together a wealth of information, explanation, and guidance, which has hitherto only been available from disparate and frequently obscure sources, and does so with great clarity and authority. It will be an invaluable resource not only for investors but for all others involved in the fields of finance and economics." --Donald R. Anderson, OBE FRSE (UK), International Economics Advisor, formerly chief economist, Courtaulds Group "Picker's book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the workings of key central banks, and to the economic data that informs their thinking and policy formation. The book should be required reading for those with more than a passing interest in financial markets and monetary policy formation." --George Worthington, Chief Economist, Asia Pacific, Thomson-IFR (Australia) "International Economic Indicators and Central Banks is an invaluable guide for anyone doing business overseas or investing in international markets. It is thorough and precise enough for professional economists yet readily accessible to business people and investors. Anne Picker is not only an excellent communicator who demystifies central bank operations and technical economic indicators; she is also a top-notch economist with extensive experience in analyzing them. Don't read any international economic analysis without this volume close at hand." --David A. Levy, Chairman, The Jerome Levy Forecasting Center

The ultimate resource for understanding and interpreting important economic figures Economic indicators are increasingly complicated to compute and comprehend. Yet in today's challenging economic environment, economic indicators are also more important than ever. This highly accessible seventh edition of the Guide to Economic Indicators presents the complicated subject of economic indicators in a conversational tone, helping readers to quickly gain an understanding of economic indicators, including why they're important, how to interpret them, and their reliability in predicting future economic performance. The book Describes how economic indicators can be manipulated to demonstrate almost any business cycle Examines how GDP, invisible balances, the terms of trade, and unemployment are used to interpret economic data Includes over ninety tables and charts Fully updated and revised, the Guide to Economic Indicators, 7th Edition is an invaluable resource for anyone searching for a clear explanation of the world's underlying economic realities.

The ultimate resource for understanding and interpreting important economic figures Economic indicators are increasingly complicated to compute and comprehend. Yet in today's challenging economic environment, economic indicators are also more important than ever. This highly accessible seventh edition of the Guide to Economic Indicators presents the complicated subject of economic indicators in a conversational tone, helping readers to quickly gain an understanding of economic indicators, including why they're important, how to interpret them, and their reliability in predicting future economic performance. The book Describes how economic indicators can be manipulated to demonstrate almost any business cycle Examines how GDP, invisible balances, the terms of trade, and unemployment are used to interpret economic data Includes over ninety tables and charts Fully updated and revised, the Guide to Economic Indicators, 7th Edition is an invaluable resource for anyone searching for a clear explanation of the world's underlying economic realities.

Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy. In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.

A new data paradigm has emerged. Despite the human instinct to reject what cannot be fully comprehended, the big data industry is extracting new causations among multiple pools of micro-data that previously looked unrelated. This is leading to new, timely indicators and insights, and may generate new economic theories. Central banks do not have to be ahead of the curve, but they should not miss this opportunity to extract economic signals in almost real time, learn from the new methodologies, enhance their economic forecasts and obtain more precise and timely evaluations of the impact of their policies. Moreover, they should encourage these new data sources to be transparent regarding their methodology, quality and aggregation methods for publishing new types of economic indicators. Lastly, the big data industry will challenge not only traditional statistics and economics, but also the way in which these are fed into the decision-making process. This paper argues in favour of developing a conceptual framework and road map for central banks using relevant pilot studies. The objective is to explore the conditions for making systematic use of these sources as part of the central banking policy toolkit.