Bank of England

Claire Jones BoE makes rulers redundant

May 15, 2013 7:08 pm by Claire Jones

One of the few occasions when I’ve used a ruler since leaving school is during the Bank of England’s inflation report press conferences. I’m not alone — for years a ruler has been an essential tool for those trying to fathom what monetary policy makers thought was going to happen to growth and inflation in the months and years ahead.

The BoE’s practice of waiting a week between releasing its quarterly fan charts for growth and inflation and the data underlying them left bank-watchers with little choice but to dig out the ruler to work out where the MPC thought growth would be in, say, 2014. As Chris Giles commented here, there were several problems with this approach.

Now, thanks to the Stockton Review, reporters need no longer remember their rulers (hat tip to George Buckley at Deutsche Bank for the headline of this post). Read more

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Chris Giles Inflation report in five bites

May 15, 2013 3:11 pm by Chris Giles

If you read today’s Bank of England inflation report, you will notice some welcome changes. More will follow on this blog about the improvements in BoE transparency. In the meantime, the five things you need to know about the bank’s economic outlook are: Read more

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Claire Jones No excuses for Britain’s dire exports

February 14, 2013 10:55 am by Claire Jones

Brits wanting a holiday in the sun have to stump up a lot more since the pound’s crash during the financial crisis. Even after a partial recovery, the pound remains down almost a fifth in real terms against its trading partners.

On the plus side, exports should be booming. Sadly, they aren’t. There are plenty of excuses explanations, but one stands out: British exporters have too much focus on slow-growing European economies and not enough on the whizzy emerging markets. The killer statistic is that the UK exports more to tiny troubled Ireland than to all the Brics put together. Read more

Posted in Bank of England |

Claire Jones Some forward guidance from the Monetary Policy Committee

February 7, 2013 5:52 pm by Claire Jones

Future BoE governor Mark Carney. Getty Images

Bank of England governor-designate Mark Carney talked a lot today about his fondness for so-called “forward guidance” — where a central bank indicates what is likely to happen to monetary policy way beyond its next policy vote.

The theory is that forward guidance boosts growth by providing more certainty to lenders that they will be able to access cheap cash from the central bank for a long time to come. Convinced of this, banks will reduce borrowing costs and lend more. And, with rates remaining lower for longer, savers will believe there is little point in holding cash and will go splurge. Read more

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Tom Burgis Central bankers centre-stage

February 7, 2013 9:35 am by Tom Burgis
This is a Live Blog transcript. Read more

Mark Carney, the incoming governor of the Bank of England, was grilled by MPs and his ECB counterpart Mario Draghi faced awkward questions. By Tom Burgis, Ben Fenton and Lina Saigol in London with contributions from FT correspondents. All times are GMT.  

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Posted in Bank of England, European Central Bank |

Claire Jones Will the Bank of England ease policy on Thursday?

February 4, 2013 6:39 pm by Claire Jones

Pretty much everyone is expecting the Monetary Policy Committee to do the same thing it has done for the past six votes and stand pat on Thursday, when governor-designate Mark Carney is also due to appear before MPs at the Treasury Select Committee.

But one former deputy governor, Sir John Gieve, thinks there’s a chance that the MPC could vote in favour of easing policy. Read more

Posted in Bank of England |

Claire Jones An honest argument for a dual mandate

February 4, 2013 1:47 pm by Claire Jones

Asked today whether the Treasury should scrap the Bank of England’s 2 per cent inflation target, former policy maker and current central banking guru Charles Goodhart said no. The target, he said, had done little to stop the Monetary Policy Committee easing rates and printing money to stave off an economic and financial meltdown.

Andrew Sentance, another ex rate-setter, agreed. “Inflation targeting hasn’t been the constriction it has been played up to be,” he said this morning.

A cynic would argue that this is because in recent years the BoE has ignored price pressures and instead focused on growth; inflation has been above 2 per cent since December 2009 — rising as high as 5.2 per cent in the autumn of 2011. Read more

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Posted in Bank of England |
From Business blog January 22, 2013

Adam Posen’s attack on the management and culture of the Bank of England may be the strongest yet, but it is by no means the first – and won’t be the last – criticism of a persistent and dismaying lack of robust governance at the UK central bank.

What is astonishing is that despite countless warnings – three independent reviews, several newspaper editorials and sundry MPs’ warnings – the central charge that the governor is over-mighty and under-governed still stands.

 Read more

Posted in Bank of England |
From FT.com January 16, 2013

Getty Images

If a close confidant had asked Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, a year ago which City institutions he would like to take down a peg or two, the answer might well have been: Goldman Sachs and Barclays.

It has happened more by accident and opportunism than by express design, but during the past six months, the governor has duly hit those banks where it hurts. Read more

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Claire Jones The return of the BoE governor’s eyebrow

January 15, 2013 6:27 pm by Claire Jones

It seems Sir Mervyn King's eyebrows speak volumes. Image by Getty

The eyebrows of the governor of the Bank of England could become a force to be reckoned with once more.

In the days before the Basel rules, an eyebrow raised by the top man at the Bank — which was then chief financial regulator — supposedly put a stop to any misbehaviour by the banks.

It took slightly more than a raised eyebrow today. But just hours after Sir Mervyn King described Goldman Sachs’ plan to defer bonuses to avoid the 50 per cent top rate of income tax as “disappointing”, the US investment bank backed down. Read more

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