Bank of England (BoE) policymaker Megan Greene said on Tuesday that “a careful and gradual approach to removing monetary policy restrictiveness continues to be warranted.”
Underlying activity is weak, the labor market has loosened further and the disinflationary process continues.
I’m worried about both the demand and the supply sides of the economy.
I continue to think the risks remain two-sided but skewed to the downside on growth and to the upside on inflation
Given the period of elevated inflation through which we have just come, I think price stability is the key priority.
Noisy data means that it will take longer for me to take comfort from recent disinflationary trends.
I worry about the near-term profile for inflation this year, which in my view now resembles more of a “plateau” than a “hump”.
The risk that our near-term plateau in inflation feeds through into second-round effects is skewed to the upside.
Different end states for central bank balance sheets may create financial arbitrage opportunities for banks, but they are fairly limited.
Financial arbitrage opportunities present incentives for banks to participate in our facilities, this is a feature, not a bug.