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The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee: A View from a Parlimentary Specialist Advisor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Mike Wickens
Mike Wickens*
Affiliation:
University of YorkUK
*
e-mail: mike.wickens@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article assesses the new monetary policy regime introduced in the UK in 1997. It discusses the original remit given to the Bank of England, how it has been interpreted by the Bank and the conduct of monetary policy by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) subsequently. The article draws heavily on my experience as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs over this whole period. I conclude that the MPC has been very successful in fulfilling its remit, but that a puzzle remains at the heart of the policy over whether the way inflation targeting has worked in practice is consistent with how it is said to work in theory.

Keywords

Inflation targetingmonetary policy Bank of England Monetary Policy CommitteeHouse of Lords Economic Affairs CommitteeE42E52E58
Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 196 , 01 April 2006 , pp. 77 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

I should like to thank Charles Goodhart for his comments on an earlier draft. The views expressed in this article are my own, and should not be attributed to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs.

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