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Should the Bank of England be Independent?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Andrew P Blake  and
Peter F Westaway
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Extract

This note examines the question of whether the responsibility for the operation of monetary policy in the UK should be ceded to an independent Bank of England. While sterling was committed to membership of the European Monetary System, this issue was pre-empted since monetary policy was effectively determined by the actions of the Bundesbank. Now, with the UK's withdrawal from the EMS and no immediate prospect of any return, the question has again returned to the policy agenda. In fact, the arguments used to justify such a delegation of responsibility are closely related to those originally associated with the decision to join the EMS itself; that monetary policy should be controlled by an authority with a strong aversion to inflation and a reputation for sticking to its announced policy. It has been argued that an independent Bank of England would offer precisely these advantages without compromising the domestic (ie UK) objectives which were overridden by the Bundesbank.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 143 , February 1993 , pp. 72 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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