Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)If you need to understand how central banks function in the major economic markets around the world (European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, and China), this book is for you. You might invest in overseas markets, your company might be working with overseas partners or considering expansion to new markets, or you might simply be interested in better understanding the economic events you read in the news. For us, Anne Dolganos Picker has done a wonderful service with this book.
In the first part of the book (the first seven chapters), she gives us an overview of central banks in the world today and then a specific chapter on each of the six central banks being discussed. We learn a bit about their history, their independence (or not), their transparency (or not), what they have been charged with doing (price stability or currency valuation or whatever - they are not all the same), if their objectives have been changed over time, and their track record over time in achieving those objectives.
The second part of the book looks at the economic indicators used by those various central banks in making their decisions and if those indicators are available to the public, by subscription, or not at all (China being the most closed). The United Kingdom is the most open while others are open or closed to mixed degrees. It is important to understand what these banks are tasked with doing, what their favored indicators are in order to try and get a feel for what actions they are likely to take.
Another reason to learn about these indicators is that even measures with the same names such as GDP or CPI are defined differently in different countries. For example, the unemployment rate in Germany is reported two ways, by the way the Germans measure it and by the European standard. This is because the country and the EU define employment differently. Base years for these measurements are not synchronized around the world, either. This can make comparability of changes in these measures difficult to compare without careful adjustment.
I found the book fascinating and was pleased with how clearly the author wrote the book. This subject could have easily melted down into impossible to understand jargon, but she kept it surprisingly lively. Appendix A is a terrific list of the key indicators by country and the issuing agency for each indicator (and if they are available on the web). Appendix B compares the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) used by the United States versus the System of National Accounts (SNA) used in most other countries. Appendix C discusses the various Industrial Classification Systems (which have a big impact on the usability of certain manufacturing and labor statistics and for comparison across nations). And there is a very useful glossary and index.
This is a terrific book and I am glad to have it on my shelf and expect to refer to it with regularity.
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