The John Stuart Mill College regularly hosts guest lectures to give students the opportunity to go beyond the regular curriculum and interact with influential policy makers. Last week, Klaas Knot, the President of the Central Bank of the Netherlands (DNB), visited the college to give a guest lecture in the first-year PPE course Foundations of Macroeconomics.
President Knot started the lecture with a comprehensive review of important macroeconomic concepts.
He then proceeded to discuss how the Dutch and European Central Banks aim to keep inflation around the two percent mark using the tool of interest rate adjustments. Drawing upon his extensive tenure as the DNB President, which encompasses significant periods such as pre-COVID, COVID, and post-COVID eras, as well as the Ukraine conflict, President Knot shed light on the factors influencing inflation.
Afterwards, students were granted ample opportunity to engage in a lively discussion, posing a wide array of questions. The topics covered ranged from Russia's macroeconomic considerations amidst the invasion of Ukraine, the role of corporate profits in perpetuating inflation rates, to the practicality of applying lessons learned from the Great Depression.