CENTRAL BANKERS around the world have long pondered why productivity growth is slowing. Even as the latest global economic upswing has boosted employment across the rich world, output has remained sluggish. But might central banks themselves, with their armies of employees, be part of the problem?
Central banks’ output is admittedly difficult to define, let alone measure, but even so many central banks in Europe look flabby. Although the euro area’s 19 national central banks have ceded many of their monetary-policymaking responsibilities to the European Central Bank (ECB)—they no longer set monetary policy by themselves, for instance—they still retain thousands of employees who issue banknotes, manage payments systems, supervise banks and analyse the economy. According to Central Bank Directory, a trade publication, the Banque de France and the Bundesbank each employ more than 10,000 people, twice as many as the Bank of England or the Bank of Japan. The Bank of Italy employs 6,700. All told, the ECB and the euro zone’s national central banks boast a headcount of nearly 50,000 (see chart).
America’s Federal Reserve system looks bloated, too. The Board of Governors in Washington, DC, where most policy decisions are made, had about 3,000 staff at last count. When the Fed’s 12 regional reserve banks are included, the number rises to more than 20,000. Although central banks have become more important since the global financial crisis, it is not clear why they need quite so many regional staff.
Of course the euro area’s central banks and the Fed look puny compared with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which had a whopping 125,000 employees on its payroll at the end of 2018. This figure includes staff at the PBOC's bank-note printing company and State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the agency tasked with managing foreign-exchange reserves. A population of 1.4bn is only a partial explanation: China employs more than twice as many central bankers per person as Japan.
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February 24, 2020 at 07:00AM
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Daily chart - Are there too many central bankers? | Graphic detail - The Economist
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