In a Twitter interview, Elderson, asked whether the Eurozone was headed for deflation or inflation, said that after the sharp recent rise, inflation was ‘likely to go up further in the coming months.’
16 March 2021
In an interview with Financial Times posted to the ECB’s website, Lane, who is also chief economist, said that internal analysis showed that the ECB ‘could do more in terms of providing additional stimulus’. Still, while the ECB hasn’t reached the lower bound and thus ‘could lower the deposit rate’, he said, ‘there is clearly less room to deliver monetary stimulus when interest rates are already low’.
16 March 2021
In an interview with French commercial radio network RTL, Villeroy, who heads the Bank of France, noted that the new projections of the French central bank called for the domestic economy to expand by 5.5%, a clear increase versus the December forecast of ‘around 5%’.
16 March 2021
The improvement was the fourth consecutive monthly increase and the first time the indicator has risen that many times in a row in more than a year. Since its recent low of 39 points in November, the index has recovered 37.6 points.
16 March 2021
In an interview with Reuters, Centeno, who heads the Bank of Portugal, said of the purchase amounts under the ECB’s ‘quite successful’ PEPP that ‘the decision is going to be taken on a monthly basis, because we can adapt the baseline amount up or down depending on market conditions.’
16 March 2021
In a Twitter thread, Schnabel said that ‘[i]t may be misleading to infer from the weekly data how large monthly net purchases are likely to be. One reason is the varying number of trading days across months, which implies that identical monthly volumes may go along with different weekly volumes.’
15 March 2021
In an opinion piece in Finnish business daily Kauppalehti, Rehn, who heads the Bank of Finland, said, ‘Economic recovery has begun, and towards the summer the health threat should also recede with the introduction of vaccinations.’ Still, ‘the near-term economic situation remains difficult’, he said.
15 March 2021
In an interview with Spanish daily El Mundo, de Cos, who heads the Banco de España, said that ‘[i]n a context where the macroeconomic picture is similar to that of three months ago, with a medium-term inflation forecast that is far from our target and below that anticipated before the crisis, we believe that a tightening of financing conditions is not appropriate because it could hinder the economic recovery.’
15 March 2021
In an op-ed piece in the Times of Malta, Scicluna, who heads the Central Bank of Malta, wrote that ‘[t]he future remains uncertain, with the ECB talking of cautious optimism.’
15 March 2021
In an interview with Bloomberg, Kazaks, who heads Latvijas Banka, was quoted as saying that ‘[i]f the economy performs better, it could be possible to provide less support.’ A ‘rise in yields will need to be accepted. But it should be gradual to avoid premature tightening.’
14 March 2021
In an interview with Greek newspaper Ta Nea, Scholz, according to a text made available by the Finance Ministry, said that Germany must now ‘closely observe how the infection incidence develops, especially with regard to the mutations.’
12 March 2021
In an op-ed piece in Estonian daily newspaper Postimees, Müller, who heads the Estonian central bank, called the rise in government bond yields ‘signficant’ from a central bank’s point of view, but pointed out that sovereigns were still able to benefit from very low interest rates.
12 March 2021
In an interview on the economic and political webcast Ecorama, Villeroy, who heads the Bank of France, said that the flexibility of the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) made unnecessary both greater specificity about the ECB’s more rapid purchase rate and an increase in the size of the PEPP envelope.
12 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Consumer prices in Germany were confirmed to have risen in February by 1.3% on the year to almost the level of before the pandemic, according to the German Federal Statistical Office on Friday.
12 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank’s decision yesterday to accelerate the rate of asset purchases to counter risen yields was made with the envelope of the pandemic asset purchase programme (PEPP) unchanged, Governing Council member Boštjan Vasle said Friday.
12 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank will disregard an increase in inflation this year that could potentially see HICP breach the ECB’s 2% price stability threshold, ECB President Christine Lagarde said Thursday.
11 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – A central bank must always be on guard against the ‘disease’ of inflation, European Central Bank Governing Council member François Villeroy de Galhau said Thursday.
11 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – German hourly labour costs climbed a seasonally and calendar-adjusted 2.1% on the quarter in the last quarter of 2020, the German Federal Statistical Office said Thursday.
11 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member and German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann was re-elected chair of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, the BIS said on Wednesday.
10 March 2021
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The French economy has left recession and will expand by at least 5% this year, European Central Bank Governing Council member François Villeroy de Galhau said Tuesday.
9 March 2021