Writing for Firstlinks, our Investment Strategy Consultant Stephen Miller focuses examines the government’s reluctance to engage with microeconomic strategy and instead focus on monetary policy and other macroeconomic approaches.
The notion that the RBA ‘chooses to allow’ the ‘voluntary unemployment’ of several hundred thousand Australians is something that may come as a surprise to many. Yet that is precisely the charge levelled at the central bank in a tome from economist Ross Garnaut. He claims that such unemployment was a consequence of the RBA running monetary policy too tight after 2012.
Now Ross Garnaut is no slouch. He was a senior economic adviser to then PM Bob Hawke during the 1980s and has written extensively and thoughtfully on economic policy issues for decades.
However, the charge against the RBA is largely a specious one.
For one thing, the average monthly unemployment rate from February 1978 (when the current series was commenced) to the end of 2012 was 7.0%. From that point to the onset of the pandemic it was 5.6%.
The views expressed are her own and do not consider the circumstances of any investor.
