Analysing Swiss National Bank’s balance sheet

Pick up of balance sheet analysis of central banks is one big positive from the crisis. It is a very interesting field but has been ignored till Fed intervened massively and expanded its balance sheet, followed by others.

SNB balance sheet has also expanded three times from pre-crisis levels. Philipp Hildebrand, Chairman of SNB discusses this in his speech. The balance sheet has expanded on two counts – one buying Swiss govt bonds and two buying foreign exchange.

Art of central bankers dissenting: BoE vs Fed

Bank of England released minutes of its MPC meeting held on 10 June 2010. Andrew Sentance, an external member dissented and wanted BoE to raise Ban rate by 25 bps.

Now BoE has this interesting way of presenting its minutes. In US, dissent is mentioned explicitly and also the dissenters also presents his reasons for the same. Like Kansas Fed President Thomas Hoenig again dissented in the June FOMC meeting. The statement said:

Assorted Links

• Meghna Patel discusses the impact of 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum Auction on money and bond market
• Fed continues with its easy policies. WSJ Blog compares  the June statement with April’s statement
• Krugman responds to Wolfgang Franz’s criticism. Franx is German government’s economic advisory panel. This is very well put. One does not understand why Europe policymakers keep saying that crisis is mainly because of US.
• Krugman says that “economics profession has spent the last three decades systematically destroying the hard-won knowledge of macroeconomics.” 
• IFMR Blog points to a study which looks at whether ethnicity influences the choices that small business owners makes. I had the pleasure to attend the initial findings of the paper in Chennai. It was a lot of fun.
• WSJ Blog points to a report which says Financial Conditions continue to tighten Sharply
• Worthwhile Blog points US fixed rate mortgages aren’t fixed rate mortgages; they are weird, stupid, and dangerous
• Celina Jacobson sends me an email pointing to “50 Important Financial Tips for Young Adults”.
• Rodrik on some development fallacies that never die
• Chinn points to new OECD factbook
• PFM Blog points to experience of independent fiscal institutions
• Washington not happy with China’s exchange rate changes. They think measures did not go far enough