Report
Patrick Artus

What should monetary policy do if the return to full employment causes the economy to slow?

In the United States and the euro zone, the unemployment rate is returning to the level of the structural unemployment rate, which will lead growth to slow as companies face mounting hiring difficulties. In the past, when this growth slowdown took place, central banks could cut their interest rates as they had already normalised their monetary policies. But today , the normalisation of interest rates has barely begun in the United States and has not begun in the euro zone. So what might the central banks do? Fear “overheating” due to the return to full employment and hike their interest rates even though growth is slowing. An increase in interest rates would also have the advantage of restoring some monetary policy leeway; React to the growth slowdown and cut their interest rates, or at least refrain from raising them. In the first case, monetary policy would be procyclical; in the second, it would forgo the ability to be countercyclical in the future. It would have been better had the normalisation of interest rates happened earlier in the economic cycle.
Provider
Natixis
Natixis

Based across the world’s leading financial centers, Natixis CIB Research offers an integrated view of the markets. The team provides support to inform Natixis clients’ investment and hedging decisions across all asset classes.

 

Analysts
Patrick Artus

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