Australia and New Zealand’s Central Banks Are Leading What Seems to Be a Race to the Bottom

Australia and New Zealand’s central banks are having to ponder the once unthinkable: undertaking the types of extreme monetary policies that were spawned elsewhere by the 2008 global financial crisis. Bond-purchase programs and negative interest rates were long seen Down Under as meant for countries that had gorged on risky derivatives and been reckless with debt. But with very little conventional ammunition remaining and a coronavirus epidemic weighing on the world economy, the prospect of havi