6 Consequently, the Bank of England from 1997 had the combination that Debelle and I advocated: instrument independence but not goal independence. We also judged that the vagueness of the Federal Reserve’s statutory objectives meant that the Federal Reserve “has considerable goal independence.” 7 Today both the FOMC and the MPC have a numerical inflation goal--2 percent.
However, this numerical goal is not specified in legislation in either country. In the United Kingdom, the Chancellor of the Exchequer sets the MPC’s inflation target: currently 2 percent per year for the U.K. consumer price index.