The Central Banker Report Cards published by Global Finance magazine recently released their 2023 report. The magazine publishes the report annually and has been doing it since 1994. The report grades the central bank governors of 101 countries, including the European Union countries. The recent report of 2023 has been in the news because the report ranked the RBI’s Governor Shaktikanta Das A+, implicating the top central banker. It implies that the governor has successfully controlled inflation, achieved growth targets, and efficiently managed the interest rate. Other governors who have received grade ‘A’ are Central governors of Brazil, New Zealand, Mauritius and Israel. Governors who have received a grade ‘A-’ are the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Icelands, etc.
Though the grading list goes to ‘F’, where F shows outright failure, the report celebrates the initiative, creativity and efforts of the Central governors in predicting the best possible strategies to achieve the inflation and growth target. The central banks regulate the interest rate to control inflation by ensuring the system has sufficient liquidity. When the system has more than the required amount of liquidity, the central banks raise the interest rate, making it expensive for the borrowers to take credit from banks. Similarly, credit becomes cheap when the central banks decrease the rate, motivating the public to spend more. Ensuring the rate that promotes growth and prevents elevated inflation is the most challenging task of the central bank.
