statistical information processed by the staff of the bank is public. there is very little data we have that you don ’ t have, apart from knowing the shape of those data we are responsible for compiling ( such as the financial aggregates ) before they are published. the liaison information is, by its nature, given by individual firms and organisations in confidence and hence cannot normally be made public, but i think most people would accept that restriction. so the decision process does not rely on a superior information set to that which the market possesses. indeed, it seems to me that, ideally, financial markets and other interested parties would understand our policy framework sufficiently well that, most of the time, the flow of data would be the main thing which shifts expectations about future policy moves. there will always be, of course, room for differences of opinion about the importance of a particular piece of information, and the markets will not always be able to pick the exact interpretation the decision makers will place on it. hence there will be some surprises. nonetheless, given a good understanding of the framework, which i think now exists, there should normally be a reasonable degree of predictability of the general course of action the bank will take over time, even if not necessarily month by month. this is helped, we trust, by the efforts made over the years to explain our evaluation of the full range of economic and financial data. the statements on monetary policy, appearing four times each year, and now on a schedule known in advance, have become increasingly bulky over time as we have tried to make our analytical coverage of the economy and financial markets more comprehensive. they are probably too big to read at one sitting for most people, but the main messages are well flagged and the detail, we hope, repays careful reading by interested observers. it is also worth noting that the compilation of these statements every third month coincides with the build up to that month ’ s board meeting. the same ( scarce ) people work on that document as on the material for the board. hence it will hardly surprise you to learn that the analytical and descriptive material in the statement bears a rather strong resemblance to that in the board papers. in other words, the analysis available to the board that month is, for the most part, in the public domain within days of the meeting ( the pattern we have evolved towards is for the statement to be released the monday following the board meeting ). since the themes in the economy tend to evolve gradually most of the time

philip lowe : inflation and monetary policy address by mr philip lowe, governor of the reserve bank of australia, to citi's 8th annual australian and new zealand investment conference, sydney, 18 october 2016. * * * i would like to thank james bishop, andrea brischetto and merylin coombs for assistance in the preparation of this talk. i would like to thank citi for the invitation to speak at this year ’ s investment conference. i am very pleased to be here. this is my first speech as governor of the reserve bank of australia, so i would like to organise my remarks around the topic of inflation and monetary policy. nominal interest rates around the world have been at record low levels for some years and there has been extraordinary balance sheet expansion by a number of the world ’ s major central banks. yet, at the same time, inflation rates in most advanced economies remain below target. there are also concerns in some economies that inflation expectations have declined too far and are perhaps stuck at levels that are too low. this is quite a different world to the one that has existed over the past half - century. indeed, i am the first governor of the rba to have taken office where the concern of the day is more that inflation might turn out to be a bit too low rather than a bit too high. this morning i would like to focus on three interrelated issues. the first is why we have seen these low inflation outcomes across much of the world. the second is how we think about the low inflation outcomes in australia in the context of our flexible medium - term inflation target. and the third is decisions on monetary policy by the reserve bank board over recent times. low global inflation : why? it is always useful to start with the facts. this first graph ( graph 1 ) shows the average rate of inflation for a range of countries over the past two years ( the blue bars ) as well as the average rate over the past 20 years ( the black dots ). in almost all economies, inflation has recently been noticeably below its long - term average. 1 / 13 bis central bankers'speeches this second graph ( graph 2 ) shows a time series of headline and core inflation rates averaged across the major advanced economies. again, the picture is clear. while headline inflation has picked up a little recently, the outcomes over recent years have been the lowest for many decades, with the exception of a short period during the global financial crisis. core inflation rates have also been