MPC member makes case for monetary expansion

These days the Bank of England is like the proverbial swan gliding on a lake. On the surface they haven't changed policy at all for over a year - and they've kept the base rate at 0.5 per cent for two. But make no mistake: there's plenty of activity underneath.

I can reveal that the new member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be Ben Broadbent, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs. He will replace the leading proponent of rate rises, Andrew Sentance, when he leaves the Bank of England's interest rate committee in May.

Finance minister George Osborne tweaked the central bank’s mandate two weeks ago, giving it stronger backing to continue ignoring inflation when it overshoots its target due to one-off factors, reports The Telegraph. But only a handful of economists polled by Reuters last week expect the central bank to add this month to the £375bn of government bonds it bought between March 2009 and October 2012.

Martin Weale, an external member of the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) of the Bank of England, has delivered a speech discussing the United Kingdom’s economic outlook, particularly regarding inflation and interest rates. Weale highlighted the potential dangers to the UK economy of the ongoing crisis in the EU, describing the sovereign debt crisis as a [...]