{"id":815673,"date":"2026-07-22T03:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815673\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T03:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:03:14","slug":"how-trust-in-the-rba-could-help-keep-interest-rates-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815673\/","title":{"rendered":"How trust in the RBA could help keep interest rates low"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">As people lose faith in institutions across the globe, a report shows maintaining trust in the Reserve Bank can help keep inflation under control.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">A survey released by the central bank on Wednesday showed people who have higher trust in the RBA are more likely to have lower expectations of inflation.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">That has direct implications for how high the RBA needs to set interest rates to keep inflation under control.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The report comes as the RBA has hiked interest rates three times in 2026, citing inflation pressures stoked by war in the Middle East, which some property analysts have blamed for contributing to a recent decline in housing prices.  <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/4F41C2DD4BCE0DA325A126BD36F2DFA8DFF9E78393BAC307CA3B569E353F7BE2\/subgraphmysterio\/resizefit_w960;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Faap.com.au%2Fcc412c119de699828d98fbe56b1c1729\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" alt=\"rba\" height=\"540\" width=\"960\" class=\"yf-lf2kr7 loader\"\/><\/a> Inflation expectations are being closely watched by the central bank. (Aap Images\/AAP PHOTOS)           <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Written by Reserve Bank staff Jack Harden, Peter Rickards and Michelle Wright, the report observed that the survey showed that respondents with higher trust in the RBA reported lower inflation expectations on average.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Inflation expectations are closely watched by the central bank.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">If expectations become &#8220;unanchored&#8221;, it becomes more difficult for the RBA to get inflation under control.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;This is because the expectations households and firms have about future price increases influence the economic decisions they make and can, in turn, affect actual inflation outcomes,&#8221; the report said.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">If inflation expectations remain anchored, it means the Reserve Bank can sustain a lower unemployment rate without putting upwards pressure on inflation.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">&#8220;This, in turn, means that interest rates might not need to increase by as much in order to counter an inflationary shock, compared with a situation where inflation expectations start to rise,&#8221; the report said.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The study found that there was a causal link between higher trust and lower inflation expectations, which was consistent with evidence from other central banks.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">People tended to have higher trust if they had greater knowledge of the RBA&#8217;s objectives, higher economic literacy and stronger engagement with economic news.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">Older Australians tended to have higher trust than younger Australians, and men tended to have greater trust than women.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">The survey also found that inflation remained Australians&#8217; top economic concern.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">While trust in the RBA has remained relatively stable over the year since the first survey was conducted, belief that the RBA has achieved or will achieve its monetary policy objectives has collapsed in the past six months.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"text text-block paragraph text-left neo-font-paragraph-xl-reg  yf-18d6y07\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; text-transform: none; text-align: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal;\">It corresponds with a major break-out in inflation since the start of 2026.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As people lose faith in institutions across the globe, a report shows maintaining trust in the Reserve Bank&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,55595,44356,5626,390959,16776],"class_list":["post-815673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-inflation-expectations","tag-inflation-pressures","tag-interest-rates","tag-lower-expectations","tag-reserve-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}