ANDY Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, has given some of the more thought-provoking speeches of any central banker in recent years (see here and here). His latest effort is bound to capture a few headlines, not least because it heads off in three separate, but interesting, directions.
The first is to ponder what central banks can do at the zero interest rate bound if the economy falls back into recession. The average amount of monetary loosening by a central bank in a recession is 3 to 5 percentage points but that, of course, requires rates to get to 3-5% in the first place. As the Fed showed yesterday, they are struggling to get rates up by even a quarter of a point. That leaves central banks with three options. The first is to alter the inflation target, say from 2% to 4%. Economists struggle to find any adverse effects of mild inflation; it is only double-digit rates that seem to be damaging. But how can central banks get there? The hope is that, by committing to such a target, sentiment will change; workers will demand higher wages to compensate and this will, by itself, create inflationary pressures. Mr Haldane worries...Continue reading
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