Today, a central bank in a small open market economy, which would wish to turn a blind eye on the developments in the external environment and focus solely on the developments in the national economy, is doomed to failure. Secondly, globalisation changes the wage and price setting mechanisms in the national economy, which have an impact on the domestic inflation. Globalisation (the growing openness of economies) through the growing share of countries with low manufacturing costs in the global output - increases the margin and wage pressures, in consequence lowering the inflation. At the same time, globalisation drives up commodity prices, and thus contributes to - at least temporarily - increased inflation. Thirdly, increased international migration of workforce changes the situation on local labour markets. Where the workforce outflows, the wage pressures increase; in the case of an inflow of workforce, the wage pressures go down. Fourthly, globalisation changes the functioning of financial markets and increases the uncertainty as to the impact of decisions made by the central bank on these markets and on macroeconomic variables. Fifthly, globalisation has an impact on the central bank’s perception of the economic environment and the monetary policy strategy it applies. A fast transfer of the economic know-how (flow of the economic knowledge and analytical methods) changes the methods of economic analysis by central bank economists, as well as the way decisions regarding the monetary policy are made. Sixthly, globalisation increases the risk of speculative bubbles on the assets market.
As a result, the effect of tightening the monetary policy on the aggregate demand has been significantly contained due to lack of response from long-term interest rates. In the world of global financial markets nobody seems to be surprised by the fact that during the session of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC 19 ) of the American Federal Reserve, the eyes of the entire financial market are fixed on its Chairman. Why is that? Decisions made by the FOMC in Washington are equally as important for investors in New York as those in London, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai or even Warsaw. Not only do the FOMC decisions influence US economy, but also - via the financial markets channel - the entire global economy. An unexpected increase in interest rates in the USA may bring about a sudden outflow of capital from the emerging markets, and thus weaken the currencies of those countries and increase their bond yields. Some economists 20 make the point that an important aspect of the growing internationalisation of financial markets is increased discipline, which is extorted by investors on governments and central banks in individual countries. According to this hypothesis, the financial markets, through their continuous valuation of securities, duly reward good and punish bad economic policies. However, the empirical results do not provide hard evidence to support the thesis on fiscal policy discipline.