ECB Hawk-Dove Ranking: Scicluna No Longer Ranked Among the Doves

15 March 2022

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Econostream’s latest ranking of the members of the European Central Bank Governing Council in terms of hawkishness/dovishness has been updated to take into account the passage of the March 10 monetary policy meeting, so that the columns indicating voting status include only future meetings – as of today, April 14, June 9 and July 21.

Beyond that, we have made only one minor adjustment, namely a re-ranking of Maltese Central Bank Governor Edward Scicluna. Previously at -0.25 and thus marginally dovish according to our scale extending from -2 (most dovish) to 2 (most hawkish), we have assigned him a new score of 0.25, indicating marginal hawkishness.

This reclassification is based on a careful examination of all his recent comments, in particular those indicating concern about the side effects of sustained monetary accommodation.

As a result of this modification to our ranking, the mathematical average for the entire Governing Council has risen slightly further to -0.05, implying that it remains in dovish territory, albeit barely. We don’t see a contradiction here, as a fundamentally dovish Governing Council member can naturally still feel that the ECB’s mandate requires the withdrawal of accommodation.

As usual, the fact that the average for the entire Council is not in positive and thus hawkish territory is due to a relatively dovish Executive Board.

Omitting either Chief Economist Philip Lane (-1.75 and thus ultra-dovish) or Executive Board member Fabio Panetta (-2) from the ranking would already make the average for the entire Council slightly positive.