Remarks on The Post-pandemic Landscape for Central Bank Statistics 11th IFC Biennial Conference Pablo García Silva, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Chile August 25th 2022 I want to thank the organizers for the opportunity to participate in this distinguished panel, providing some remarks on the challenges we face as Central Banks and as providers of statistics, particularly in the environment we live today, as the pandemic recedes. Central Banks are keenly aware of the need to provide timely, accurate, and in-depth understandings of the changing economy. This not only to inform correctly policy making, but also to satisfy the shifting demands of society regarding the environment we live in. This inevitably implies trade-offs. Operative and budgetary constraints mean that a careful balance of timeliness, accuracy, and depth needs to be achieved. The ever-expanding complexity of economic relationships, and the speed at which policies have had to adapt to very large shocks, imply in my view that compared to a not so distant past timeliness is today at a premium. The times of change we live in require us to react promptly. This, however, carries the cost that both the accuracy and the depth of data will be inversely related to its timeliness. This brings about the implication that both policy making needs to consider the implicit uncertainty of the environment, and also that statistics providers need to be candid about those uncertainties when communicating with the public.
While there is a consensus about these positive effects, experience has shown that financial openness modifies the balance of risks at the macroeconomic level: •  first, it may reduce some risks, for instance, by decreasing the correlation between investment and savings;  •  second, it may nevertheless increase other risks: for instance, greater competition in the banking system may prompt strong credit growth with a loosening of credit standards, as domestic banks try to maintain their profits and market shares;  •  third, it may even create new risks, for instance through financial contagion, if risk appetite for emerging markets suddenly reverses, given the prominent role played by hedge funds in cross-border investments and the sudden shifts in their asset allocations. In this regard, the Banque de France recently published a special issue of its Financial Stability Review devoted to Hedge Funds, which may be of interest to the RBI (www.banque-france.fr). In contrast with the French experience which took place in the 1980s, the Indian process of financial liberalisation takes place in a context of intense globalisation and accelerated innovation. It is gradual but successful and it is no surprise that India was one of the first countries to participate voluntarily in the IMF Financial Stability Assessment Program (FSAP). In my view, the progressive and transparent character of this process is fundamental to guarantee that a country reaps the full benefits of its integration into the world economy.