Help wanted: New central banker to shore up drooping peso

It’s now 11 weeks into the hunt for a new central bank chief, and there’s still no word from Mexico on who will replace its star policy maker Agustin Carstens, Bloomberg News reports.

No wonder every conference or dinner party of economists turns into a guessing game about who will take Carstens’s spot when he resigns. The long wait — Carstens leaves in July to head the Bank of International Settlements– has only fed the rumor mill as columnists constantly add new names to the roster of candidates. The information gap has grown so vast that one columnist now writes Carstens won’t even step down as planned, and will stick around until December.

The job comes with a robust list of requirements: for starters, the next central banker needs to be born in Mexico and be 65 years old or younger. The candidate must rein in surging inflation, shore up a currency pummeled by President Donald J. Trump and keep a stumbling economy afloat, while preventing a potential, and devastating credit downgrade.

We spoke with 20 Mexico and U.S.-based analysts in banks and research firms including Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc., who told us who their ideal candidate would be, as well as who they believe would actually end up getting the post:

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Source: bloomberg.com