13  5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  5  self-reported surveys of Bank of England staff suggest, overall, they believe their productivity has not been much affected by home-working. Not commuting has given me back two hours of my day, a chunk of which I spend working to offset the time spent answering the door for Amazon deliveries. Like many others, I also felt a productivity surge when the kids went back to school, although in my case that might well have just been relief. As for my digital skills, they have improved to the point where I am now (almost) competent on around 10 different video-conferencing platforms, although I am aware I am tempting fate by even mentioning that. The Effects on Well-Being and Happiness Productivity and output are an objective measure of the economic contribution of workers. These measures need not, however, map into subjective measures of the well-being felt by workers. Well-being matters, both in its own right but also because there is a fairly well-established link between peoples’ sense of satisfaction and their productivity in the workplace.17 Happier people tend also to be more productive. The survey study for this Summit is timely in speaking directly to this well-being question. On the face of it, its conclusions are rather encouraging. Many people appear to be happier, indeed materially happier, from having shifted to home-working. They also feel more empowered in the workplace.
For example, episodes of volatile capital flows may return, while the economy’s long-term competitiveness remains in need of improvement. Policy objectives in 2011 The Bank of Thailand envisages two economic policy objectives this year: (1) to safeguard macroeconomic stability, and (2) to continue strengthening underlying fundamentals of the economy. Both objectives should be interpreted in the broad sense, for example, macroeconomic stability entails price stability, financial stability, as well as fiscal sustainability. Likewise, strong economic fundamentals encapsulate resilient private sector, efficient public sector, and sound banking sector among others. Given these broad goals, the Bank of Thailand and everyone all have parts to play. The government, for example, is in charge of ensuring a sustainable fiscal position in the long-term, and an efficient disbursement of budget so as to best strengthen the economy. Monetary policy Maintaining economic balance is key to the making of monetary policy, as it is one of the most important pre-requisites of macroeconomic stability. In practice, this means that as the economic activity returns to normalcy, monetary policy stance must similarly be normalized. Failure to do so will add undue pressure on inflation, ultimately posing risks to macroeconomic stability. Thus this year, the monetary policy committee (MPC) will need to continue normalizing monetary policy. The amount and pacing of policy interest rate adjustments this year will be consistent with the outlook for growth and inflation as well as the surrounding risks.