Monthly Archives: November 2014

Dear Ed and George. Today, on the Andrew Marr show, the debate between you on public finances and macroeconomic policy seemed to reach new lows. 1.  The focal point of today was the part-leak-part-preannouncement of policy.  Surely better for all … Continue reading →

In 2002 I was seconded at the ECB, and tasked – with another, from the research department – with writing a note to the Governing Council on oil prices and monetary policy.  If I remember correctly, in the 3 months … Continue reading →

A quick and incomplete response to Buiter’s note for Citi [which is a great read], quoted extensively in FTAlphaville today. Buiter compares the properties and usefulness of government fiat currency, and other intrinsically worthless assets like Gold and Bitcoin. He … Continue reading →

A thought-provoking post from Toby Nangle on this topic raises some difficult questions that go to the heart of monetary economics and policy, and take in important practical questions like what are official statistics for. In his post, Toby recaps … Continue reading →

This morning the Treasury Committee, the cross-party Parliamentary body charged with scrutinising the activities of the Bank, held a hearing on the Bank of England’s November Inflation Report.  It seemed like an anti-climax.  Lots to talk and grill the BoE about, … Continue reading →

This post pulls together and recaps last night’s tweets. I was really struck by reading this document from the St Louis Fed, reflecting back solemnly on the culture of research first launched by Homer Jones in the 1960s.  It articulates … Continue reading →

Simon Wren-Lewis calls for an extension of the remit of the Office for Budget Responsibility, (OBR), the fiscal watchdog set up by Coalition Chancellor George Osborne, echoing Giles Wilkes.  The idea is to include in their services the option to … Continue reading →

A quick reaction to Andrew Haldane’s latest speech, released this morning.  After a great survey of the literature on behavioural econ and finance, and economic psychology, he says: “The Bank is about to embark on what will be, in the … Continue reading →

There is continuing debate on the blogosphere about whether, contrary to common monetary economics parlance, interest rates are not low because inflation is low, but low interest rates are actually causing low inflation, with more contributions from John Cochrane, Noah … Continue reading →

A quick Bank of England Inflation Report Press Conference Post Mortem. The headline seems to be that MPC is forecasting a larger, protracted deviation of CPI inflation below the 2 per cent target.  That is despite some softening in the … Continue reading →