The volatile data for inflation, output, and interest rates in the United Kingdom prior to the 1990s, and the relative macroeconomic stability associated with inflation targeting, provide a rich basis for discriminating between rival explanations for the outbreak of stagflation. Alternative...

This paper investigates the problem of selecting an optimal horizon for inflation targeting in the United Kingdom. There are two key ways of thinking about an optimal horizon, so the paper looks at optimal horizons for both of these interpretations. In addition, to see whether the results are...

Understanding the degree of measurement error in the estimates of the output gap available to policy-makers in 'real time' is important both for the formulation of monetary policy and for the study of inflation behaviour. For the United Kingdom, no official output gap series exists, but an...

This paper estimates simple interest rate reaction functions or 'Taylor rules' for different UK monetary policy regimes. In the period between the floating of sterling in June 1972 and the Bank of England receiving operational independence in May 1997, UK monetary policy went through several...

A long-standing area of research and policy interest is the construction of a measure of monetary policy stance. One measure that has been proposed, as an alternative to indices that employ monetary aggregates or exchange rates, is the spread between the actual real interest rate and its...