Author Archives: Tony Yates

Douglas Carswell, Brexit, and the BoE’s independence

I saw on Twitter today that Douglas Carswell responded to the March MPC minutes, which revealed that the Committee thought that uncertainty about the outcome of the referendum on EU membership had caused Sterling to fall, and may be depressing … Continue reading

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The golden rule of borrowing to invest

John McDonnell has committed his party to a version of the ‘golden rule’ for public finances.  A government in which he was Chancellor would only borrow to invest.  Except when monetary policy was hampered by the zero lower bound. The … Continue reading

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Instrument forecasts for the Fed, HMT but not the BoE

A quick post on a hobby-horse of mine. Today, the Fed released its economic projections, including the famous ‘dot charts’ where FOMC members project what they think should happen to the Fed Funds Rates. By contrast, the Bank of England’s … Continue reading

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We should long for fiscal policy, and budgets, to be boring

The UK financial press is full of pent up excitement about the budget.  Including talk of money ‘behind the sofa’ being replaced with the metaphorically transposed ‘black hole’, and how George Osborne will respond. We should all long for fiscal … Continue reading

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How to minimise the credibility damage of a rise in the inflation target

I had an interesting exchange with Malcolm Barr at JP Morgan via email.  He made two points that were food for thought. Both are aimed at finding ways to minimise the risk that a rise in the inflation target was … Continue reading

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Making ECB corporate bond buying ‘fairer’ and better targeted

The ECB announced this week that it was going to start buying investment grade corporate bonds.  Several people in my Twitter feed pointed out that there was a problem with this.  This chart posted on marginal revolution by Tyler Cowen … Continue reading

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Prospect article on the budget

I wrote this article as a preview to the budget for the Prospect website today.

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