If you look at the behaviour of other central banks, it is very similar—so it is not much of a surprise that other central banks have also cited uncertainty as a rationale for waiting.16 For the business people in the room who have considered large capital expenditures, this reasoning must sound familiar.
It can be useful to have the option value of waiting until you are more sure of the returns. This is particularly true if the investment is largely irreversible. As with investment, fixed costs of changing policy direction may explain a central bank’s aversion to reversals and motivate a wait-and-see approach to policy.