Malicious ECB rate hikes

by Rebecca Wilder

Lieblings quote of the day by Dean Baker:

“The ECB is run by a perverse cult that worships 2.0 percent inflation and is prepared to sacrifice almost all other economic goals to meet this target.”

The article goes on to argue that the ECB should increase its inflation target to 3-4% in order to facilitate positive wage growth in the debt deflationary economies like Spain. I’ve argued a similar point in the past.

However, I’d like to add that this “perverse cult” called the European Central Bank (ECB) raised its policy rate on April 13 – a point in time that correlates perfectly with a shift in trend across euro-area bond markets. Specifically, April 13 marks the upswing in risk premia on Italian, Spanish, and Belgian bonds relative to German bunds. Hmmm…policy mistake?



Now that’s just malicious.

Rebecca Wilder also posted at Newsneconomics