The strongest call yet for a ‘wait and see’ approach on European credit tightening has been issued by Ignazio Visco, governor of the Banca d’Italia. In a lecture co-organised by OMFIF and University College London, Visco said, ‘The risk of doing too much [in credit tightening] is at least as much as doing too little.’ Without mentioning names of colleagues on the 26-member European Central Bank governing council, Visco took issue with policies favoured by ‘tighteners’ on the council such as Joachim Nagel and Klaas Knot, presidents of the German and Dutch central banks, who are particularly worried about high wage ... (full story)