Black Wednesday and the rebirth of the UK economy
The article below by William Keegan is a discussion of a recent seminar he attended on ‘Black Wednesday and the rebirth of the British economy’. The seminar led him to consider whether policy makers should be guided mainly by rules or discretion in the development of policy. Many would argue that we have moved away from discretion and moved more towards fiscal and monetary rules for the implementation of policy, but the article discusses the extent to which this may be true.
When the going gets rough, can our rulers rely on the rule book? Observer (18/11/07)
Questions
| 1. | Explain, using examples as appropriate, the difference between policies based on fiscal and monetary rules and discretion. |
| 2. | Explain how the MPC “largely ignores the cumulative dangers of a high exchange rate” in its determination of interest rates for the UK economy. |
| 3. | Discuss how effective the adoption of an inflation target has been in management of the British economy in the past decade. |