Economics 2021
How to run a world-class economics department
Central banks have myriad ways of organising their economists
Larger research teams tend to publish more
Central banks with bigger teams report greater publishing volumes, but variation remains
Advanced economies draw on wider range of models
DSGE models and newer techniques more common at advanced economy central banks
Quarterly forecast updates predominate
Frequency of forecasts varies more widely in emerging markets
Data services centralised at minority of central banks
Central data governance and technology services used by three in 10 central banks
Alternative data fuels central bank research
Important research areas include monetary transmission, exchange rates, digitisation, SMEs and climate change, against the backdrop of Covid
Pandemic spurred use of alternative data
Advanced and emerging market economies prioritise different applications
Unemployment forecast by minority of emerging market economy nations
Data highlights differences based on local economic circumstances
One in five central bank economists have a PhD
Central banks in Africa lag behind peers in sponsoring PhD programmes
Covid-19 causes bigger growth forecast errors
But central banks perform better at forecasting inflation
Economist salaries outpace GDP per capita
Salaries were six times higher than GDP per capita, on average
Policy economists outnumber research economists
Central banks with their own pure research departments tend to employ more policy economists
Nearly 40% of central banks have financial sector in main forecast model
Semi-structural models remain favoured option for producing key forecasts
Economists tend to perform both policy and research duties
Only around a quarter of economics departments have a pure research function