Business confidence appears to have now recovered well nationwide, and to a large extent also in New Zealand. We believe the cuts in the OCR assisted this. Fiscal impact of the earthquakes The impact of the earthquake on the Government’s fiscal position has also been significant. Central and local government have faced significant cost increases as a result of the earthquakes.
Only central banks  18  See Daniel M. Covitz, Nellie Liang, and Gustavo Suarez (2009), "The Evolution of a Financial Crisis: Runs in the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Market," unpublished paper, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Division of Research and Statistics, August.