In word and deed, China is easing economic policy

BEN BERNANKE, the former chairman of America’s Federal Reserve, entitled his memoir “The Courage To Act”. But a lot of what central bankers do these days is talk. They talk about what they are doing, will do and might do. In central banking, words can speak louder than actions.China is no different. Its macroeconomic policymaking is a combination of acts and signals, execution and exegesis. On December 6th, for example, the People’s Bank of China announced that it was cutting the reserve requirement ratio (the amount of money banks are required to hold in reserve, as a share of deposits) by half a percentage point, from a weighted average of 8.9% to 8.4%. That, it said, would “unleash” about 1.2trn yuan ($190bn) of funding.