Our June seminar will be held jointly by ESA and the Lowy Institute and will take place at the Lowy offices.  Booking for this event is essential. Abstract: Interest rates are low, but not low enough. Some analysis suggests that, had it been feasible, the Federal Reserve should have cut interest rates to negative four percent at the onset of the financial crisis. The eurozone and Japan are similarly constrained. There are, however, proposals that remove the impediments that these central banks continue to face. An exchange rate between electronic money and paper money, is one such proposal. Leon Berkelmans will discuss how this proposal could be implemented along with some of the challenges the proposal faces. The Speaker: Dr Leon Berkelmans is the Director of the International Economy Program and the G20 Studies Centre at the Lowy Institute. Before joining the Institute, Leon was a Senior Manager at the Reserve Bank of Australia, where he worked on the Chinese and Indian economies, investment, trade, and financial markets. Prior to the RBA, Leon worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C., where his main responsibilities were macro-econometric modelling of the United States economy. Leon has also spent time working in Kenya, evaluating the efficacy of different methods of giving aid, and has also worked as an economic consultant at the Centre for International Economics. Leon has a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Australian National University, with a year on exchange to Oxford University. View Leon’s bio here. Details: Booking for this event is essential Topic:         Negative Interest Rates: how low can  you go? Speaker:    Dr Leon Berkelmans, Lowy Institute for International Policy Date:          Tuesday 30 June 2015 Time:         12.45pm - 1.45pm Venue:       Lowy Institute, 31 Bligh Street, Sydney (Note different venue) Bookings should be made via the Lowy Institute. Please note, you will need to firstly register with Lowy (a very simple process)

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