The week ahead in central banking
Our week ahead email helps you to track the most important events in central banking. To see all of our emails and alerts visit www.ft.com/nbe
The week ahead in central banking
Our week ahead email helps you to track the most important events in central banking. To see all of our emails and alerts visit www.ft.com/nbe
More QE from the Bank?
The Bank of England‘s Monetary Policy Committee meets on Wednesday and Thursday, when the decision is due out at noon UK time (11am GMT).
The week ahead in central banking
Our week ahead email helps you to track the most important events in central banking. To see all of our emails and alerts visit www.ft.com/nbe
FOMC/ BoJ votes
The big events next week are the Federal Open Market Committee and Bank of Japan policy votes.
The FOMC decision, due out Wednesday afternoon DC time, is not expected to see further quantitative easing announced. However, the FT’s Gavyn Davies says this does not necessarily mean we’ve seen the last of QE from the Fed:
Should central bankers’ pay depend on the accuracy of their inflation forecasts?
The Bank of England’s forecasting record, both for inflation and growth, has in recent years been woeful.
But would the Bank have done any better if its officials’ pay depended on the forecasts’ accuracy?
According to a paper out today from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the answer is yes.
The week ahead in central banking
Our week ahead email helps you track the most important events in central banking. To see all of our emails and alerts visit www.ft.com/nbe
The Federal Open Market Committee and the Bank of Japan’s policy board both vote on Tuesday. Will either panel back a change in course?
A new monetary policy regime for the Bank?
Sir Mervyn King has in the past been of the sort of central banker that has, at every opportunity, extolled the virtues of inflation targeting.
So comments at yesterday’s Inflation Report press conference, where the governor conceded that the Bank of England’s monetary policy framework has its deficiencies, were something of a surprise. Here’s what he said:
“I do think the experience of the last four to five years has raised some question marks about what inflation targeting can hope to achieve and whether it’s sufficient. I think our feeling now is, on its own, it’s not sufficient, it did not prevent the build up of a large degree of financial instability. And there is I think a debate to be had about whether other instruments are the right way to deal with that, through our Financial Policy Committee, or whether monetary policy should take other considerations into account.”
Could this be the beginning of the end for the Bank of England’s inflation target, at least in its current guise?
It’s far too early to say. Besides, with the governor due to depart mid-way through next year, whether or not the Bank alters its monetary policy framework will largely depend on the views of Sir Mervyn’s successor.
Grim. Whether it is Sir Mervyn King’s warning the recovery is off-track, inflation rising to equal a 20-year high or the new Ernst & Young Item Club forecast expecting UK growth of only 0.9 per cent this year, the word describes the current economic outlook. Hopes that Britain could show in 2011 that it was escaping the grip of the financial crisis have been dashed.
The Bank of England governor blamed the rest of Europe for Britain’s feeble recovery. “The main impediment to the strategy of rebalancing our economy is markedly slower growth in our major export markets, especially in the rest of Europe,” he said on Tuesday. By contrast, Labour frets that economic policy is repeating the historic mistake of the 1930s with “too far, too fast” deficit reduction.
QE no longer the “last resort of desperate governments”?
When the Bank of England was considering quantitative easing back in early 2009, George Osborne, then shadow chancellor, lambasted it as the “last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.”
A general election later and, unsurprisingly, Mr Osborne is a little less critical. This from today’s letter to Sir Mervyn King: 
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Ralph Atkins, Frankfurt bureau chief, has been writing about European economics and politics for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. He has been watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies since 2004. He has previously worked in London, Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
James Politi is US economics and trade correspondent for the Financial Times, based in Washington DC. He joined the Washington bureau in January 2008 following four and a half years as US deals correspondent covering M&A and private equity. James Politi joined the FT in London in 2000 with an MSc at the London School of Economics, and undergraduate degrees from Georgetown University and the University of Florence. RSS
