On 2 November, the Bank of England raised Bank rate from 0.25% to 0.5% – the first rise since July 2007. But was now the right time to raise interest rates? Seven of the nine-person Monetary Policy Committee voted to do so; two voted to keep Bank Rate at 0.25%.
Raising the rate, on first sight, may seem a surprising decision as growth remains sluggish. Indeed, the two MPC members who voted against the rise argued that wage growth was too weak to justify the rise. Also, inflation is likely to fall as the effects of the Brexit-vote-induced depreciation of sterling on prices feeds through the economy. In other words, prices are likely to settle at the new higher levels but will not carry on rising – at least not at the same rate.
So why did the other seven members vote to raise Bank Rate. There are three main arguments:
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Inflation, at 3%, is above the target of 2% and is likely to stay above the target if interest rates are not raised. |
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There is little spare capacity in the economy, with low unemployment. There is no shortage of aggregate demand relative to output. |
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With productivity growth being negligible and persistently below that before the financial crisis, aggregate demand, although growing slower than in the past, is growing excessively relative to the growth in aggregate supply. |
As the Governor stated at the press conference:
In many respects, the decision today is straightforward: with inflation high, slack disappearing, and the economy growing at rates above its speed limit, inflation is unlikely to return to the 2% target without some increase in interest rates.
But, of course, the MPC’s forecasts may turn out to be incorrect. Many things are hard to predict. These include: the outcomes of the Brexit negotiations; consumer and business confidence and their effects on consumption and investment; levels of growth in other countries and their effects on UK exports; and the effects of the higher interest rates on saving and borrowing and hence on aggregate demand.
The Bank of England is well aware of these uncertainties. Although it plans two more rises in the coming months and then Bank Rate remaining at 1% for some time, this is based on its current assessment of the outlook for the economy. If circumstances change, the Bank will adjust the timing and total amount of future interest rate changes.
There are, however, dangers in the rise in interest rates. Household debt is at very high levels and, although the cost of servicing these debts is relatively low, even a rise in interest rates of just 0.25 percentage points can represent a large percentage increase. For example, a rise in a typical variable mortgage interest rate from 4.25% to 4.5% represents a 5.9% increase. Any resulting decline in consumer spending could dent business confidence and reduce investment.
Nevertheless, the Bank estimates that the effect of higher mortgage rates is likely to be small, given that some 60% of mortgages are at fixed rates. However, people need to refinance such rates every two or three years and may also worry about the rises to come promised by the Bank.
Articles
Bank of England deputy says interest rate rise means pain for households and more hikes could be in store Independent, Ben Chapman (3/11/17)
UK interest rates: Bank of England shrugs off Brexit nerves to launch first hike in over a decade Independent, Ben Chu (2/11/17)
Bank of England takes slow lane after first rate hike since Reuters, David Milliken, William Schomberg and Julian Satterthwaite (2/11/17)
First UK rate rise in a decade will be a slow burn Financial Times, Gemma Tetlow (2/11/17)
The Bank of England’s Rate Rise Could Spook Britain’s Economy Bloomberg, Fergal O’Brien and Brian Swint (3/11/17)
Bank of England hikes rates for the first time in a decade CNBC, Sam Meredith (2/11/17)
Interest rates rise in Britain for the first time in a decade The Economist (2/11/17)
Bank of England publications
Bank of England Inflation Report Press Conference, Opening Remarks Financial Times on YouTube, Mark Carney (2/11/17)
Bank of England Inflation Report Press Conference, Opening Remarks Bank of England, Mark Carney (2/11/17)
Inflation Report Press Conference (full) Bank of England on YouTube (2/11/17)
Inflation Report Bank of England (November 2017)
Monetary Policy Summary and minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting ending on 1 November 2017 Bank of England (2/11/17)
Questions
- Why did the majority of MPC members feel that now was the right time to raise interest rates whereas a month ago was the wrong time?
- Why did the exchange rate fall when the announcement was made?
- How does a monetary policy of targeting the rate of inflation affect the balance between aggregate demand and aggregate supply?
- Can monetary policy affect potential output, or only actual output?
- If recent forecasts have downgraded productivity growth and hence long-term economic growth, does this support the argument for raising interest rates or does it suggest that monetary policy should be more expansionary?
- Why does the MPC effectively target inflation in the future (typically in 24 months’ time) rather than inflation today? Note that Mark Carney at the press conference said, “… it isn’t so much where inflation is now, but where it’s going that concerns us.”
- To what extent can the Bank of England’s monetary policy be described as ‘discretionary’?
In three interesting articles, linked below, the authors consider the state of economies since the financial crisis of 2007–8 and whether governments have the right tools to tackle future economic shocks.
There have been some successes over the past 10 years, in particular keeping inflation close to central bank targets despite considerable shocks (see the Vox article). Also unemployment has fallen in most countries and to very low levels in some, including the UK.
But economic growth has generally remained well below the levels prior to the financial crisis, with low productivity growth being the main culprit. Indeed, many people have seen no growth at all in their real incomes over the past 10 years, with low unemployment being bought at the cost of a growth in zero-hour contracts and work in the gig economy. And what economic growth we have seen has been largely the result of taking up slack through unprecedentedly loose monetary policy.
Fiscal policy, except in the period directly following the financial crisis, has generally been tight as governments have sought to reduce their deficits and slow down the growth in their debt.
But what will happen if economies once more slow? Or, worse still, what will happen if there is another global recession? Do countries have the policies to tackle the problem this time round?
Quantitative easing could be used again, but many economists believe that it will have more limited scope if confined to the purchase of assets in the secondary market. Also, there is little scope for reducing interest rates, which, despite some modest rises in the USA, remain at close to zero in most developed countries.
One possibility is a combination of monetary and fiscal policy, where new money is used to finance government expenditure on infrastructure, such as road and rail, broadband, green energy, hospitals and schools and colleges. This would avoid the need for governments to borrow on open markets as the spending would be financed by new government securities purchased directly by the central bank.
An objection to such ‘people’s quantitative easing‘, as it has been dubbed, is that it would effectively end the independence of central banks. This independence has been credited by many with giving central banks credibility in controlling inflation. Would inflationary expectations rise with people’s quantitative easing and, with it, actual inflation? A lot would depend on the extent to which this QE could still be conducted within a framework of targeting inflation and whether people’s expectations of inflation could be managed jointly by the government and central bank.
Articles
How should recessions be fought when interest rates are low? The Economist. Free exchange (21/10/17)
The economy is failing. We need to think radically about how to fix it The Guardian, Liam Byrne (25/10/17)
Elusive inflation and the Great Recession Vox, David Miles, Ugo Panizza, Ricardo Reis, Ángel Ubide (25/10/17)
Videos
Economics since the crisis Vox on YouTube. Charles Goodhart (11/10/17)
Is the system broken? Vox on YouTube, Anat Admati (12/10/17)
Signs of a crisis Vox on YouTube, Christian Thimann (19/10/17)
Policy stances since 2007 Vox on YouTube, Paul Krugman (29/10/17)
Did policymakers get it right? Vox on YouTube, Paul Krugman (4/10/17)
Questions
- Why, during the next recession, will the “zero lower bound” (ZLB) on interest rates almost certainly bite again?
- Why would the scope for QE, as conducted up to now, be more limited in the future if a recession were to occur?
- Why have central banks appeared to have been so successful in keeping inflation close to target despite negative and positive demand- and supply-side shocks?
- Why are the pressures on government expenditure likely to increase in the coming years?
- How would a temporary price-level target help to tackle a recession when the economy next bumps into the ZLB? What would limit its success?
- Is it appropriate for central banks to stick to an inflation target in times when there is an adverse supply-side shock resulting in cost-push inflation?
- Why might monetary policy conducted in a framework of inflation targeting tend to lessen the impact of a fiscal stimulus?
- What are the arguments for and against relaxing central bank independence and pursuing a co-ordinated fiscal and monetary policy?
- What are the arguments for and against using helicopter money to boost private expenditure during a future recession where interest rates are already near the ZLB?
- What are the arguments for and against using ‘people’s QE’?
‘There is no magic money tree’, said Theresa May on several occasions during the 2017 election campaign. The statement was used to justify austerity policies and to criticise calls for increased government expenditure.
But, in one sense, money is indeed fruit of the magic money tree. There is no fixed stock of money, geared to the stock of gold or some other commodity. Money is created – as if by magic. And most of broad money is not created by government or the central bank. Rather it is created by banks as they use deposits as the basis for granting loans, which become money as they are redeposited in the banking system. Banks are doing this magic all the time – creating more and more money trees as the forest grows. As the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin explains:
Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.
However, most of the country’s MPs are unaware of this process of money creation. As the linked Guardian article below states:
Responding to a survey commissioned by Positive Money just before the June election, 85% were unaware that new money was created every time a commercial bank extended a loan, while 70% thought that only the government had the power to create new money.
And yet the role of money and monetary policy is central to many debates in Parliament about the economy. It is disturbing to think that policy debates could be based on misunderstanding. Perhaps MPs would do well to study basic monetary economics! After all, credit creation is not a difficult topic.
Articles
Positive Money poll
Questions
- Do central banks create money and, if so, what form(s) does it take?
- Explain how credit creation works.
- What determines the amount of credit that banks create?
- How can the central bank influence the amount of credit created?
- Distinguish between narrow and broad money supply.
- What is the relationship between government spending and broad money supply (M4 in the UK)?
- Why is there no simple money multiplier whereby total broad money supply is a simple and predictable multiple of narrow money?
- What determines the relationship between money supply and real output?
- Does it matter what type of lending is financed by money creation?
- Comment on the statement: “The argument marshalled against social investment such as education, welfare and public services, that it is unaffordable because there is no magic money tree, is nonsensical.”
- Could quantitative easing be used to finance social investment? Would there be any dangers in the process?
Food prices often rise or fall with good or bad harvests or because of a change in demand. A recent example is the price of brazil nuts, which by May this year had risen over 60% on European markets.
Part of the reason for the price rise has been on the demand side. Consumption of brazil nuts has increased as more people switch to healthier diets. This includes the purchase of the nuts themselves and as part of healthier snack foods. With supply being relatively inelastic, any rise in demand tends to have a relatively large effect on price.
A more acute reason is on the supply side. There has been a very poor harvest of brazil nuts. The nuts are grown largely in the Amazon basin which has been hit by drought linked to the El Niño effect. This, however, is only a temporary effect and future harvests should increase again as rainfall returns to normal. However, in the longer term, rainfall patterns may change with the effects of global warming.
The price rise in the UK has also be aggravated by the depreciation of the pound since the Brexit vote, which has fallen some 13% against the dollar since June 2016. A rise in the dollar price of brazil nuts has thus led to an even bigger rise in their sterling price.
Articles
Brazil nuts are rocketing in price – here’s why The Conversation, Iain Fraser (24/10/17)
Brazil nut prices soaring due to reduced harvests after droughts Independent, Zlata Rodianova (16/5/17)
Data
Index Mundi commodities Linked from Economics Network site
Commodity Markets World Bank (see Excel file of monthly prices)
Questions
- Explain the specific supply conditions that have affected the price of brazil nuts in 2017.
- Why did prices rise ahead of the change in supply?
- How has the size of the price rise been affected by the price elasticity of demand for brazil nuts?
- What determines the price elasticity of demand for brazil nuts?
- Find out what other food prices have risen or fallen a lot in recent months and explain why.
- How do real food prices (i.e. prices after correcting for inflation) compare today with 10 and 20 years ago? Explain why.
Thirty years ago, on Monday 19 October 1987, stock markets around the world tumbled. The day has been dubbed ‘Black Monday’. Wall Street fell by 22% – its biggest ever one-day fall. The FTSE 100 fell by 10.8% and by a further 12.2% the next day.
The crash caught most people totally by surprise and has never been fully explained. The most likely cause was an excessive rise in the previous three years, when share prices more than doubled. This was combined with the lack of ‘circuit breakers’, which today would prevent excessive selling, and a ‘herd’ effect as people rushed to get out of shares before they fell any further, creating a massive wave of destabilising speculation.
Within a few weeks, share prices started rising again and within three years shares were once again trading at levels before Black Monday.
Looking back to the events of 30 years ago, the question many fund managers and others are asking is whether global stock markets are in for another dramatic downward correction. But there is no consensus of opinion about the answer.
Those predicting a downward correction – possibly dramatic – point to the fact that stock markets, apart from a dip in mid-2016, have experienced several years of growth, with yields now similar to those in 1987. Price/earnings ratios, at around 18, are high relative to historical averages.
What is more, the huge increases in money supply from quantitative easing, which helped to inflate share prices, are coming to an end. The USA ceased its programme three years ago and the ECB is considering winding down its programme.
Also, once a downward correction starts, destabilising speculation is likely to kick in, with people selling shares before they go any lower. This could be significantly aggravated by the rise of electronic markets with computerised high-frequency trading.
However, people predicting that there will be little or no downward correction, and even a continuing bull market, point to differences between now and 1987. First, the alternatives to shares look much less attractive than then. Bond yields and interest rates in banks (at close to zero), unlike in 1987, are much lower than the dividend yields on shares (at around 4%). Second, there are circuit breakers in stock markets that suspend dealing in cases of large falls.
But even if there is a downward correction, it will probably be relatively short-lived, with the upward trend in share prices continuing over the long term. If you look at the chart above, you can see this trend, but you can also see periods of falling share prices in the late 1990s/early 2000s and in the financial crisis of 2008–9. Looking back to 1987, it seems like a mere blip from the perspective of 30 years – but it certainly didn’t at the time.
Articles
Three decades since Black Monday – are markets on the verge of another tumble? The Telegraph, Lucy Burton (19/10/17)
Black Monday: 30 years on from the 1987 crash Citywire, Michelle McGagh (19/10/17)
30 Years Ago: Lessons From the 1987 Market Crash U.S.News, Debbie Carlson (12/10/17)
Black Monday: Can a 1987-style stock market crash happen again? USA Today, Adam Shell (19/10/17)
Black Monday anniversary: How the 2017 stock market compares with 1987 MarketWatch, William Watts (19/10/17)
30 years after Black Monday, could stock market crash again? MarketWatch, William Watts (19/10/17)
The Crash of ’87, From the Wall Street Players Who Lived It Bloomberg, Richard Dewey (19/10/17)
Questions
- Explain what are meant by ‘bull markets’ and ‘bear markets’.
- Share prices are determined by demand and supply. Identify the various demand- and supply-side factors that have led to the current long bull-market run.
- What caused the Black Monday crash in 1987?
- For what reasons may global stock markets soon (a) experience, (b) not experience a downward correction?
- Distinguish between stabilising speculation and destabilising speculation on stock markets.
- What determines when a downward correction on stock markets bottoms out?
- Explain how stock market circuit breakers work. Can they prevent a fundamental correction?
- Does the rise in computerised trading make a stock market crash more or less likely?
On 2 November, the Bank of England raised Bank rate from 0.25% to 0.5% – the first rise since July 2007. But was now the right time to raise interest rates? Seven of the nine-person Monetary Policy Committee voted to do so; two voted to keep Bank Rate at 0.25%.
