RBA urges businesses to embrace 'animal spirits' to boost economy

RBA boss Glenn Stevens wants businesses to be encouraged to embrace their "animal spirits" and take more risks to fuel economic growth.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Glenn Stevens fronts the House of Representatives Economics Committee in Brisbane, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Glenn Stevens fronts the House of Representatives Economics Committee in Brisbane, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014. (AAP)

Australian businesses need to take more risks - and be rewarded for doing so - to help fuel the nation's economy.

That's the advice from Australia's top central bankers, who say record low interest rates aren't the only answer to driving economic growth.

Making their bi-annual appearance before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, RBA governor Glenn Stevens and his deputy governor Dr Philip Lowe said business people outside the mining sector needed to be encouraged to take more risks.

Mr Stevens channelled economist John Maynard Keynes' theory of how "animal spirits" can drive confidence and motivate people.

The RBA governor argued that while the central bank's monetary policy could aid the economy, it was up to politicians to work out how to encourage "animal spirits" in non-mining sector businesses amid the winding down of the resources boom.

Many businesses were more focused on sustaining a flow of returns to shareholders rather than implementing plans for growth.

But if businesses began to feel more confident, then maybe there would be more investment in the non-mining sector.

"I come back to what set of arrangements and what set of conditions are going to give people who are the risk takers the right set of incentives and confidence to say, `I'm going to take that risk, I'm going to get that cheap money and build that plant, the factory, the whatever, employ the people," Mr Stevens said.

"That's really what we have to be asking ourselves."

Dr Lowe said RBA's monetary policy, and the historically low interest rates it has produced, can't be the engine that drives the economy's overall growth.

He said Australia should aim to become a high wage, high productivity, high value-added economy.

And to get there, policymakers need to invest in education, infrastructure and back businesses that take risks so Australia's economy is a success in the next 20 years.

"From my perspective our society is becoming too risk adverse ... and we are not paying enough attention to return and we are paying too much attention to risk," Dr Lowe said.

"It's somehow enlivening the entrepreneurial and risk-taking culture, the innovation culture, so that we can be the type of country that has high value-added, high wages and high productivity."


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