De-Risking the RBA

I had an op-ed in the AFR over the break on the federal government’s injection of funds into the RBA’s Reserve Fund. The article notes that the public policy issue is not the subtraction from the budget bottom line from the injection, but whether the benefits of holding foreign exchange reserves are worth the risk of potential valuation losses and forgone income on higher yielding domestic assets. Foreign exchange reserves are not necessary for the effective conduct of monetary and exchange rate policy in Australia. An alternative policy approach is to hold smaller reserves. Full text below the fold (may differ slightly from published AFR text).

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posted on 13 January 2014 by skirchner in Economics, Financial Markets, Monetary Policy

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