In an in-depth report earlier this week, we showed that, while the Financial Stability Board recognizes some of the policy questions posed by its vision of cross-border payments, many of the most critical are unsaid, let alone answered.  Payment-system experts are unsurprisingly focused on how to make the cross-border payment system work, not on how the workings global regulators might change cross-border finance.  To move forward, FSB must answer a [...]

Following two initial reports, the FSB has worked with other global regulators and international financial institutions to craft a framework it hopes will enhance cross-border payments and thus improve financial inclusion, emerging-economy growth, and financial stability.  Although actions and deadlines are laid out even as the FSB readily acknowledges that the plan is preliminary, its building blocks are very ambitious and often accompanied by specific deadlines to which global organizations [...]

As a New York Times op-ed today has it, ultra-low or even negative rates are just what’s needed to stoke growth and increase equality.  The Fed in fact buys into this narrative, at least to a point.  The problem with it is that an increasing body of evidence shows it ain’t so. Earlier this week, we assessed a new IMF study that, while not taking direct aim at the Fed, [...]