The MPC places considerable weight on its economic forecasts when setting monetary policy. But there is inevitably uncertainty around the outlook for the economy, and to communicate this, the MPC publishes its projections as fan charts. This article discusses some of the issues that must be...

In this speech, Ian Plenderleith, Executive Director for financial market operations and member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, reviews prospects for the UK economy. He notes that the overall picture is an encouraging one, with the prospect of continuing growth overall on a basis that...

As part of a new regular series, the market research agency NOP undertook a survey of public attitudes to inflation for the Bank of England in February. The results show that, given a choice between higher interest rates or higher inflation, four times as many people would prefer interest rates...

In its money market operations, the Bank of England implements the interest rate decisions of its Monetary Policy Committee while meeting the liquidity needs of the banking system and, thus, contributing to its stability. The Bank has decided that it needs to upgrade the way in which it carries...

The transparency and openness of the monetary policymaking process at the Bank of England has provided very detailed information on both the decisions of individual members of the Monetary Policy Committee and the information on which they are based. In this paper we consider this decision...

In this speech, Mervyn King, Deputy Governor, reflects on the first five years of the Monetary Policy Committee. He poses four questions about the role and record of the MPC. First, why give the power to decide interest rates to a committee rather than an individual? Second, does it matter that...

We re-investigate the traditional thinking of a fixed inflation target within an inflation-targeting central bank, the Bank of England (BOE). Drawing on extensive readings of the BOE’s publications, we investigate whether, in addition to setting the officially announced inflation target based...

With the aim of reigniting inflation in the euro area, in early 2015 the ECB embarked on a large-scale asset purchase programme. We analyse the macroeconomic effects of the Asset Purchase Programme via the banking system, exploiting the cross-section of individual bank portfolio decisions. For...

In this paper we provide empirical measures of central bank credibility and augment these with historical narratives from eleven countries. To the extent we are able to apply reliable institutional information we can also indirectly assess their role in influencing the credibility of the...