BCE: novas apreciações

No seguimento do acompanhamento que tenho feito da discussão da actuação dos Bancos Centrais europeu e norte-americano, nesta conjuntura económica (ver aqui e aqui), mais dois artigos:

• Um é da Telos, dos economistas Wyplosz e outros, BCE: comment elle peut mieux faire, onde constatam que: "La BCE a remarquablement bien réagi à la crise du crédit depuis le mois d’août dernier. Son prestige auprès des marchés financiers en est sorti accru. C’est donc un bon moment pour revoir la stratégie, la transparence et la gouvernance." A posição é crítica em relação ao modo como o BCE comunica a sua estratégia; ao nível de transparência que permite e, finalmente, à maneira como está organizado - isso influenciaria a sua capacidade de influenciar, de forma eficaz: as expectativas dos agentes económicos e dos mercados; a estrutura das taxas de juro do médio e longo prazo e as tentações "políticas de curto prazo" de alguns dirigentes nacionais europeus.
  



• O outro é uma apreciação do New York Times do BCE: In Europe, Central Banking Is Different. Interessante e informativo. Alguns excertos:
  

  "The Fed’s mandate, balanced between fighting inflation and encouraging full employment, leads to a simple investor calculus: if growth sags, the Fed is virtually certain to cut interest rates.
  

  Usefully for the Fed, which seems likely to cut its benchmark short-term rate below the current 3 percent, inflation in the United States tends to fall as demand slackens during a slowdown. And even though inflation has lately been rising to worrisome levels, the Fed appears to be counting on that rule to apply again.
  

  The European bank, by contrast, is skeptical of the notion that inflation automatically falls when growth cools, and it has a mandate, inherited from the German central bank, to keep prices stable above all else."
  

  Outro excerto:
  

  "But despite the statement’s awkwardness, it reflected the central bank’s poorly understood view that strong employment protections coupled with muscular labor unions and generous social benefits act as a brake on falling demand. And if higher inflation is being imported through commodity prices, any automatic link between lower growth and lower inflation cannot be taken for granted.
  

  Moreover, the ups and downs of the European economy — the distance it travels between strong growth and severe downturns — have been less than in the United States in recent decades. So even if recession seems imminent to some in the United States, central bankers here say, Europe need not expect a similar outcome."
  

  E ainda outro:
  

  After the end of the Internet boom and the terrorist attacks in September 2001, the European Central Bank never went as far as the Fed, which cut rates to 1 percent. Nor did it tighten rates as much as the Fed did when times got better (ver gráfico acima)."