Central banks have been consistent suppliers to the gold market, at least up until the second quarter of 2009, when they became a source of demand. India bought a substantial 200 tons, illustrated by the red bar on the far right of the above figure, from the IMF in November. Russia, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius have also been buyers of late. Yet even if the rebuilding of central bank gold stocks turns out to be a long-term trend, in the short run the gold market is much more likely to be driven by volatile private investment demand, which jumped from only 8% of demand in the third quarter of 2008 to 86% in the first quarter of 2009 (see the orange block on the right of the figure). Investment demand is in part facilitated by exchange traded funds (ETFs) such as the SPDR Gold Shares, which has bought a massive 353 tons of gold since the beginning of 2009. Read more »

The greatest challenge of European monetary union is devising a single monetary policy for a large grouping of countries facing divergent economic conditions. As these charts show, this challenge has been thrust to the fore since 2008, as eurozone employment conditions have diverged dramatically across member countries. Whereas the effectiveness of independent monetary policy as a tool for managing employment in smaller open economies is much debated among economists, the political challenge facing the European Central Bank in having to justify its policy decisions under current conditions is clear. Read more »

This chart shows who financed the massive amounts of debt that the U.S. government issued in the first half of 2009. The total net issuance of treasuries and agencies is shown on the left, and economic sectors are ordered from left to right by the size of their total purchases. Given the federal backing of the GSEs – government sponsored entities such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – it is best to look at the sum of treasuries and agencies rather than treasury issuance alone. Through the first two quarters of 2009, issuance has been financed primarily by official buyers. Official buyers often have motivations other than profit. The Federal Reserve is buying debt as a part of its quantitative easing program, while some foreign central banks are accumulating debt as a function of their currency policy. The Federal Reserve plans to slow and then stop its purchases by the end of the first quarter of 2010. This raises the question of who will replace this source of demand, and at what price. Read more »

The Federal Reserve responded aggressively to the economic crisis with unconventional monetary policy measures. These measures have vastly expanded the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, leading to concerns over future inflation. Chairman Ben Bernanke has argued that the Fed has the tools to fight any uptick in inflation; for example paying interest on reserves. But it is not only the size of the Fed’s balance sheet that has changed; its composition has changed as well. As the chart above illustrates, the Fed is now holding riskier assets, such as mortgage backed securities, that may prove difficult to unwind in a timely fashion. Read more »

The U.S. and IMF bailout of Mexico in 1994 is often cited as a textbook example of a successful financial rescue. The economy stabilized allowing Mexico to pay back most of its loans in less than 2 years. In response to the current crisis the Fed took on the role of global dollar lender of last resort by lending to foreign, primarily European, central banks. These loans were paid back more quickly than Mexico’s. Read more »