Professor Renée Fry-McKibbin, Australian National University, presented the 2024 Freebairn Public Lecture at the University of Melbourne on Thursday, November 21, 2024.
Central Bank Reviews: An International Comparison
Why are central banks reviewed? Independence requires accountability which requires evaluation. From the Svennson Review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 2001 to the Bernanke Review of the Bank of England in 2024, most central banks in developed countries have been reviewed, but the formats and frameworks differ. Professor Renée Fry-McKibbin covers aspects of central bank reviews outside of Australia such as the remits of evaluations, common themes, key recommendations and the subsequent uptake by the institutions under review and governments.
About the speaker
Renée Fry-McKibbin is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA), Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. She has two decades of expertise in analysing policy-relevant research questions around international macroeconomic and financial market shocks and their effects, mainly for small, open, resource-rich economies like Australia. She directs three research programs in CAMA and is a research associate in both the Centre for Applied Macro and Petroleum Economics at the BI Norwegian Business School (2012-) and the H.O. Stekler Research Program in Forecasting at George Washington University in Washington, DC (2014-).
Professor Fry-McKibbin holds several positions in the economics and social sciences community. In 2022-2023, she was one of three panellists who conducted an independent review of the Reserve Bank of Australia. In 2022, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia appointed her as the Chair of the Disciplines of Business and Economics. In 2023, she was elected to the Regional Standing Committee of the Econometrics Society for Australasia. She is a member of the Economics Society of Australia Central Council (2021-) and a board member of the Australasian Macroeconomics Society (2014-). She is also a member of the Go8 Economics Advisory Group. She has editorship positions at several journals, including Editor of the Economic Record (2021-), following six years as Co-Editor (2015-2020). She is/was an Associate Editor for the International Review of Economics and Finance (2019- ), Finance Research Letters (2016-) and the Journal of Banking & Finance (2014-2019). In 2018, she was a member of the ARC Research Excellence Committee to evaluate the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) submissions for the Economics and Commerce for all universities in Australia for the Australian Research Council.
About the lecture series
The Freebairn Lecture series is named after Emeritus Professor John Freebairn in recognition of the many significant contributions he has made to education, economics, and public policy. He was Head of the Department of Economics from 1997 to 2002 and Director of the Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research from 2005 to 2007. He held the Ritchie Chair in Economics from 2008 until his recent retirement. He is one of Australia’s best-known contributors on economic issues and has been deeply involved in taxation reform and public policy.