Paul Carrel
Reuters
March 31, 2011
After following the Federal Reserve’s lead for over a decade, the European Central Bank is poised to launch a series of interest rate hikes before the U.S. central bank for the first time in the ECB’s history.
The change from the traditional pattern reflects the ECB’s greater preoccupation with inflation pressures, as well as its higher level of discomfort with the emergency bond-buying programmes run by central banks.
But the “decoupling” of ECB and Fed policies is also the result of an historic shift in the global economy: the increased influence that Asia, rather than the United States, is having on the euro zone’s economy.
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