Adam Tooze, author of “Collapsed”, published his Chartbook #160 on 14 October. The essay comments on the 2022 Nobel Prize awards in economics. Tooze makes some very favourable comments about the early work of William White and colleagues at the BIS, and the more recent work of BIS economists as well.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/Tooze/FMfcgzGqQvxksZHFttZqrxfTnBdKmWpp
In a Financial Times article written on September 8, John Plender made a favorable reference to the Forward, written by William White, to an essay prepared for the New Zealand Initiative by Graham Wheeler and Bruce Wilkinson. White suggested that central banks have systematically underestimated the importance of supply side shocks when setting monetary policy.
https://www.ft.com/content/c7c3675e-d6c9-42c1-bec3-19cbab162b91
Edward Chancellor’s recent book “The Price of Time” traces the history of interest rates from their first use in Mesopotamia to modern times. He convincingly documents how low interest rates generally lead to financial instability, low growth and economic insecurity. In the book, and in an interview with Mark Dittli of “The Market” (linked below), he refers very favorably to earlier papers of William White and Claudio Borio of the BIS whom he generously describes as “the heroes in this story” who, in the end, will ” have the last laugh”.
https://themarket.ch/interview/edward-chancellor-central-banks-delayed-the-day-of-reckoning-ld.705
William White and Sunil Sharma coauthored an article that was posted by OMFIF on 21 April, 2022. They argue that we could be one serious economic crisis away from significant political turmoil that might threaten our democratic traditions. After decades of slow growth, stagnant real wages, and the many costs of covid, a restless public is increasingly inclined to see political structures as “rigged” and “unfair”. We must cease relying on macroeconomic stimulus (especially monetary policy) to paper over structural problems, while inadvertently making them worse. Instead, policymakers should address those structural issues more directly: not least, rising inequality, market concentration, environmental degradation and the need for debt restructuring.
https://www.omfif.org/2022/04/structural-reforms-required-to-safeguard-democratic-future/
William White, along with others, answered a question posed by the editors of The International Economy for their Winter 2022 edition: “To what extent is today’s massive global ocean of liquidity breaking all the rules in US financial markets?” White suggests (page 10) that nominal bond rates have stayed low, in part, because the Fed has convinced the bond markets that real rates are “naturally” low, and that higher inflation is only transitory. Should either of these arguments be contested, and White notes there are good grounds to believe they might be, then nominal rates might rise sharply. In this case, ” the effects on an overleveraged global economy would not be pretty”.
InternationalEconomyLiquidityWinter2022Jack Farley of Blockworks posted an interview with William White on 18 November. The interview focused on issues raised in a more technical paper White recently had posted on the INET website (see Publications). Ultra easy monetary policy is increasingly ineffective in stimulating aggregate demand and its negative side effects are becoming increasingly apparent. The discussion also touched upon the distributional implications of the current stance of monetary policy, and the likelihood that “financial repression” might be a solution to the current overhang of debt that has been generated by monetary policy.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, William White gave an interview to Daniel Stelter, the host of “Beyond the Obvious”, one of Germany’s most popular financial podcasts. The discussion covered the reasons for the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, the shortcomings of the Non-System that followed it, and proposals for a new system that would not be based on a nationally issued currency, like the US dollar. The discussion also covered currency issues within the euro zone, as well as “narrow money” solutions to both domestic and international problems.
https://think-beyondtheobvious.com/the-world-needs-a-restart-of-the-financial-order/
Along with twenty other economists, William White answered the question posed by The International Economy. White advised that the negative effects of ultra-easy monetary policy extend well beyond overpriced assets and that another economic downturn could be triggered by a variety of sources. A new focus on facilitating “orderly” debt restructuring would be unpalatable but still preferable to a “disorderly” and potentially disastrous alternative.
InternationalEconomySummer2021The Financial Times published a letter from William White on 28 June. In it, he points out a puzzling inconsistency between Fed rhetoric and Fed actions. On this basis, White suggests that the Fed’s “real framework is anything that justifies not tightening”.
https://www.ft.com/content/d313dc26-b87c-459d-86db-ac27f652693d
On 29 March, William White gave a wide ranging interview to Bastjan Usinech, a journalist at “Finance Manager”, the leading business magazine in Slovenia. The discussion focused on past macroeconomic policy mistakes leading to ever growing debt levels and an ever narrowing path leading to sustainable growth. Falling off that path could plausibly lead to either deflation or high inflation or even both in succession. White also expressed views on what central banks and fiscal authorities should be doing now, as we emerge from the covid pandemic. The pros and cons of more radical alternatives to conventional policies – like “narrow money” and a “debt jubilee” – were also considered.