A Colloquium was held on 22 November, 2024, at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, in honour of Claudio Borio who retired from the BIS at the end of the year. The BIS will in the near future be posting the comments made by a large number of participants who came from all over the world to honour the many contributions made by Claudio to “the art of central banking” over many decades. William White was honoured to be asked to Chair the last panel of the day on monetary policy. His opening comments are attached.

On 8 October the American Enterprise Institute hoste a panel, chaired by Alex Polack, featuring (in order) Don Kohn, William White, Nathan Sheets and Desmond Lachman. White first evaluated the issue from the shorter-term perspective seemingly preferred both by analysts and the Federal Reserve itself. He concluded that the arguments for easing cautiously, if at all, dominated those for easing aggressively. He then went on to assert that a longer term perspective was required in this evaluation because, in Hyman Minsky’s words, “short term stability breeds longer term instability”. The Fed and central banks more generally have always been behind the curve because they have paid chronic inattention to supply side issues and to the longer term implications of thier policies for financial stability. Looking forward, negative supply shocks will increase the risks of a “tipping point” into either deflation (arising from excessive private debt) or high inflation (arising from excessive public debt).

https://www.aei.org/events/is-the-federal-reserve-behind-the-curve/

William White holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, and on 26 May partcipated in a fundraiser for other graduates of that university. His keynote presentation described the bad path we are on in the economic, domestic political, geopolitical and environmental spheres, and how things might well get worse. Not least, troubles in one system can destabilise the other systems. After analysing the various forces impeding meaningful policy chage, White gave a broad outline of what needs to be done to move forward, regardless.

TorontoManchesterPolycrisisTorontoUofManchester