As part of its response to the global banking crisis and a sharp downturn in domestic economic prospects, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) began a programme of large-scale asset purchases (commonly referred to as quantitative easing or QE) in March 2009, with the aim of...

The paper considers two aspects of the targeting of unemployment benefit systems (a) the probability that benefit is received in the population of those unemployed on standard international criteria of search and availability, and (b) the probability in the population of benefit recipients that...

The paper considers two aspects of the targeting of unemployment benefit systems (a) the probability that benefit is received in the population of those unemployed on standard international criteria of search and availability, and (b) the probability in the population of benefit recipients that...

The increase in transparency embedded in the new monetary policy framework established in the UK after 1997 was expected to make the market less sensitive to interest rate decisions and more to macroeconomic releases. This has not turned out to be the case. This article uses high-frequency data...

The subject of this paper is how the increase in transparency brought about by the Bank of England's operational independence has changed the way in which markets react immediately after economic announcements. Other things being equal, the increase in transparency of the new framework will make...

This paper investigates the impact of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing policy on UK asset prices. Based on analysis of the reaction of financial market prices and modelbased estimates, we find that asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves - which by February...