ECB Hawk-Dove Ranking: Average of Governing Council Enters Hawkish Territory
27 July 2022
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Econostream’s latest ranking of the 25 members of the European Central Bank Governing Council in terms of hawkishness/dovishness has been updated to take into account the passage of the July 20-21 monetary policy meeting, so that the columns indicating voting status include only future meetings – as of today, September 8, October 27 and December 15.
In addition, we have made adjustments to the rankings of six Governing Council members:
- Banco de España Governor Pablo Hernández de Cos has been assessed as marginally less dovish than previously. He is no hawk and probably never will be, but it seemed appropriate for there to be a degree of space between him and the others at the extreme dovish end of the spectrum.
- Bank of Finland Governor Olli Rehn is now also classified as moderately less dovish and thus very close to neutral.
- Bank of Lithuania Chairman Gediminas Šimkus has been made slightly more hawkish.
- National Bank of Slovakia Governor Peter Kažimír is now ranked as moderately more hawkish.
- Latvijas Banka Governor Mārtiņš Kazāks is assessed as marginally more hawkish.
- Belgian National Bank Governor Pierre Wunsch is also classified as marginally more hawkish.
As a result of these adjustments to our ranking, the mathematical average for the entire Governing Council has risen slightly further to 0.11 and has thus finally entered hawkish territory, just. As noted before, the low level of overall hawkishness is no contradiction with recent policy decisions, as a fundamentally dovish Governing Council member can naturally still feel that the ECB’s mandate requires the withdrawal of accommodation.
As usual, the Executive Board is relatively dovish. The Council’s average without the six Board members would be a significantly more hawkish 0.29.
