Luci Ellis: The economic outlook

Speech by Ms Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor (Economic) of the Reserve Bank of Australia, at the Australian Business Economists Lunchtime Briefing, online, 7 August 2020.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
10 August 2020

Thanks to Australian Business Economists for hosting this webcast. A short while ago the Bank released its regular Statement on Monetary Policy (SMP), including details on our updated outlook. But these times are far from regular. Australia, along with the rest of the world, has been subjected to a shock without modern precedent. The COVID-19 pandemic has induced an enormous contraction in the global economy. Labour markets have been severely disrupted everywhere. The policy response has also been enormous, from public health agencies to financial regulators, central banks and fiscal authorities. All arms of public policy are needed to deal with the health crisis and support the recovery.

Today I would like to take you through some of the detail on the outlook, and provide some background on the thinking and analysis behind those numbers.

Our baseline scenario

As we did three months ago, today we are presenting three separate scenarios. We are doing this to provide more guidance on the range of uncertainty in the current environment. There are many potential risks and uncertainties at present.