New RBNZ gov Anna Breman: so far, so good

On her second day in the job, last week, she appeared before parliament’s finance and expenditure committee and then on day 10, she hosted a breakfast meeting for finance journalists, mingling and being personally introduced and then sitting for a half-hour Q and A session.

Breman certainly has plenty of monetary policy chops, having served six years at Sweden’s central bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, the last three as the first deputy governor, and she has a doctorate in economics from the Stockholm School of Economics, as well as having worked in the US.

It would be unfair to expect too much when she’s hardly had time to do much more than put her feet under her desk, but she is already projecting a friendly and relaxed persona.

I couldn’t help thinking about the contrast with the previous governor, Adrian Orr, who left the bank abruptly in March after refusing to accept the need for RBNZ’s bloated budget – expanded way beyond its remit – and the need to rein it in.