International Economic Indicators and Central Banks
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331 |
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2007 |
International Economic Indicators and Central Banks is an invaluable guide for anyone doing business overseas or investing in international markets. It is thorough and precise enough for professional economists yet readily accessible to business people and investors. Anne Picker is not only an excellent communicator who demystifies central bank operations and technical economic indicators; she is also a top-notch economist with extensive experience in analyzing them. Don’t read any international economic analysis without this volume close at hand.
Introduction:
Investors are no longer constrained for the most part by political barriers and now seek investments that diversify their portfolios geographically. The move toward globalization has presented investors with worldwide investment opportunities. Anyone interested in making an international investment is interested in the factors that may have an impact on it—be it good or bad. And the good and bad in individual global markets no matter where they are located, can affect a company’s operations and that carries through to their bottom line. It is a rapidly changing world, and one needs to track economic events diligently as they occur. Why should economic growth in Europe, for example, influence a U.S. company’s profits? For one thing, it could be a prime market for that company and its fortunes are tied to it.
The importance of economic data is being recognized everywhere, and vast strides have been made in data quality even over the past year since I began writing this book. Somewhat belatedly, governments are finally appreciating the value of economic data for planning purposes and attracting investment. As a result, the production of indicators is a growth industry in many nations and changes and improvements are being made continually along the way.
Investors in the United States want to know how the economy is growing, whether there is inflation, and if employment and wages are increasing. They want to know the impact of these variables on consumer spending and on the profits of companies engaged in the making and selling of consumer products. Investors are concerned about the outlook for interest rates and how they will affect the value of the dollar, and therefore of the imports that everyone wants to buy. And I could go on. It is no different in Europe, Asia, and Australia. If you are investing in Germany, you would want to know why domestic demand has been lagging other European Monetary Union countries, for example.
The overall goal is to help investors make more informed investment decisions outside of the United States. And the first stop on that road is a brief look at who watches economic data in the financial marketplace. The ‘‘watchers’’ and ‘‘reactors’’ are found in three broad markets: bonds, stocks, and foreign exchange. And because we will be talking about events that can move financial markets wherever they might be located, a brief review of the bond, stock, and currency markets follows the preface in an introduction to the financial markets.
Part I of the book is directed toward an explanation of how central banks operate and why they influence economies and your investments. Part II deals with economic indicators and how that information helps investors understand what is happening economically and why it could influence the behavior of their investments. The data can also point to new avenues of investment opportunity. And since not all indicators are created alike across geographical borders, an understanding of these differences is also important.
This book covers the major industrial countries of Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Australia, and China. The euro-zone or European Monetary Union (EMU) is also included as the umbrella organization for the three European countries covered here. I have chosen to include some brief remarks on China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, along with brief profiles of their major economic indicators and their pitfalls. Despite the rudimentary nature of their data and the information about it, it is impossible to overlook the country’s ever-increasing importance in today’s global economy.
Contents:
- Central Banks
- An Overview of Central Banks
- Bank of England
- European Union and the European Central Bank
- Bank of Japan
- Bank of Canada
- Reserve Bank of Australia
- People’s Bank of China
- Economic Indicators
- An Overview of International Economic Indicators
- European Indicators: Eurostat and National Statistics
- UK Indicators
- Japanese Indicators
- Canadian Indicators
- Australian Indicators
- Chinese Indicators
International Economic Indicators and Central Banks By Anne Dolganos Picker pdf
4 reviews for International Economic Indicators and Central Banks
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Rachel Costa (verified owner) –
Picker’s book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the workings of key central banks, and to the economic data that informs their thinking and policy formation. The book should be required reading for those with more than a passing interest in financial markets and monetary policy formation.
Mckenzie Montoya (verified owner) –
This Guide has practical applications for students of international business and international economics
It helps international bankers, investors and policy makers to make the right financial decisions.
Gianna Escobar (verified owner) –
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.
Magnus Lopez (verified owner) –
Central Bankers controlled the economies of the world. The author of this book, also write the international column for Barron. I read her column every weekend. I love her knowledge of the global scene.