a clutch of new central bank governors
are settling into their seats or are
about to from Australia and India to
Malaysia and Turkey but do investors
care about them anymore there is a time
when these appointments would move
markets and have longer-term
consequences but in a world of ultra-low
interest rates do these great and
serious people make any difference
monetary policy best operates when
central banks are doing different things
rather than all following the same herd
instinct when policies differ and one
central bank cut rates while another
raises them then capital is on the move
but now central banks look incapacitated
it is the unintended consequence of the
g20 meeting of policymakers in Shanghai
in February when they all accepted the
need to avoid competitive currency
devaluations in order to calm some
volatile markets now markets are so calm
and volatility so low that central banks
worry that a slight policy tweak will
have too big a market impact who would
have thought at the start of the year
that the Fed which was then plotting for
rate hikes for 2016 would become so
allergic to the idea of a stronger
dollar it means some markets are looking
bubbly is this year's rally in emerging
markets FX really a sensible affirmative
bet or one based on a lack of meaningful
alternatives and is the idea of fiscal
stimulus as a solution to global low
growth being floated around simply
because nothing else seems to work at
least there is one voice bucking the
trend the san francisco fed chief john
williams last week said that the fed
needed to think out of the box and raise
its inflation target in order to give it
more room for manoeuvre now central bank
governors whether they are incoming or
incumbent will welcome that after all
the Fed is paralyzing them what's more
important their own data all the data
coming out of the US now
investors know the answer to that they
would like to care what the next
governor the reserve bank of india says
but they have little reason to look
beyond the Fed we used to talk about
globalization and interdependence
strange then dependent on one set of
policymakers the world has now become