11/01/2005 9:39:15 am
A Third Would be Enough. According to the Financial Times, the latest edition of the Central Bank Directory shows that there are over 52 000 people employed at Central Banks in the Eurozone. And only 1300 of these actually work for the ECB! In 8 of the 12 euro countries the National Central Bank has more employees than the ECB. That means there are 17 central bankers for every 100 000 eurozone citizens. Compare this with the number of central bankers in the world′s largest country, China - only 2200. Clearly, it is time to cut down the number of people at National Central Banks, especially the really over-sized ones like that of France. The Central Banking system of the eurozone has been a compromise between centralisation and de-centralisation, which is unnecessary. It is about time to make the system more slim. There may be some comfort in the fact that the Russian Central Bank employs over 80 000 people, but of course we should aim for the top and not the bottom.