p style="text-align: left;"By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr //pp style="text-align: left;"(please click on pictures for better viewing)br //pp style="text-align: left;"br //pp style="text-align: center;""Being a Keynesian means being a Keynesian in emboth/em the good and bad times."/p p style="text-align: center;"emAndres Velasco (Finance Minister in Chile) [1]/em/p pbr //ppIt has been a while since I last had a thorough look at Chile (a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/10/chiles-economy-in-perspective-october.html"here/a and a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/08/economic-growth-in-chile.html"here/a); more specifically, the last time I had Chile under the loop was in October 2008 and thus around the time when the global economy was about to enter two quarters (Q4-08 and Q1-09) of absolute horror. Whether we are past the worst at this point in time is debatable and I am, personally, skeptical with regards the narrative of second derivatives and green shoots, but it is hard to deny that it does represent a narrative and a fairly strong one too. In this context I thought ...

Note: This is a beta version. I will probably be going over it a couple of times before I am completely happy with it. Moreover, please note that all pictures can be seen in a bigger format by clicking on the which will open a new window or tab

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"Being a Keynesian means being a Keynesian in both the good and bad times."

Andres Velasco (Finance Minister in Chile) [1]

It has been a while since I last had a thorough look at Chile (here and here); more specifically, the last time I had Chile under the loop was in October 2008 and thus around the time when the global economy was about to enter two quarters (Q4-08 and Q1-09) of absolute horror. Whether we are past the worst at this point in time is debatable and I am, personally, skeptical with regards the narrative of second

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Chile's central bank raised its target interest rate to 8.25 percent, the highest in almost a decade, as policy makers show their determination to win the fight against inflation. The bank's five-member board, led by President Jose De Gregorio, is trying to contain consumer price increases that are triple its target. The bank said today that the speed of further rate increases depends on economic statistics, dropping a clause from last month's statement that said raising the rate is the ``most likely'' scenario.``The future course of the policy rate foresees further adjustments to ensure that inflation converges with the target, at a rhythm that will depend on new information gathered and on its implications for projected inflation,'' the bank said in its statement.Inflation last month was within expectations, the bank said. Core inflation, which excludes food and fuel, remains high, ...

Chile's central bank raised its target interest rate to 7.75 percent yesterday. This is now the highest level in almost a decade, and marks the strength of the determination at the central bank to slow Chile's inflation back down towards the bank's target zone. Central bank President Jose De Gregorio and his team boosted the key rate by half a percentage point for the third straight month, making borrowing costs the highest since December 1998.Consumer prices rose at an annual pace of 9.5 percent in July, matching June's rate, the fastest since September 1994. The bank warned that further rate rises will probably be needed to bring annual inflation to its target rate of 3 percent. It should also be noted that real interest rates in Chile are still negative - minus 1.75% - when compared with the current ...

Chilean central bank policy makers voted unanimously to raise the benchmark lending rate Jan. 10 in a bid to curb the fastest inflation in more than a decade. "Given the data since the previous meeting, the council considered that the most plausible options on this occasion were to raise the rate by 25 or 50 basis points"The central bank lifted its target rate a quarter point for the second consecutive month to 6.25 percent after annual inflation climbed to 7.8 percent in December. In a monetary policy report published Jan. 16. the bank's economists cut their expectations for economic growth and said consumer prices would rise on average 7.1 percent this year.The monetary policy committee next meets Feb. 7.Jose de Gregorio, who has presided over rate increases at both of his monthly policy-setting meetings as central bank president, warned on Jan. 17 ...