Chart 10 Survey measure of businesses’ price expectations Balance of respondents expecting higher prices, BCC Survey Manufacturing  50  Services  40 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30  1997  1999  2001  2003  2005  2007  2009  2011  Source: British Chamber of Commerce  7 8  12  See Sentance (2011) for example. For example, Orphanides and Williams (2005) argue that changes in the unemployment rate provide a better guide to demand pressure than the level of unemployment because of uncertainty about the equilibrium rate of unemployment. BIS central bankers’ speeches  What we can observe more clearly is how the pricing intentions of businesses and the rate of price increases they are able to secure are responding to changes in the demand climate. And this evidence does not seem to support the view that the pressure of demand is bearing down heavily on inflation at present in the UK, even when allowance is made for cost increases. Chart 10 shows a survey-based measure of pricing intentions from the surveys conducted by Chambers of Commerce around the UK. This shows that expected price increases are currently running at relatively high levels in both manufacturing and services, and that there has been a significant turnaround in the pricing climate since the trough of the recession in 2009. Another indicator which suggests that domestic demand pressures are exerting limited downward pressure on inflation at present is the rate of inflation in the services sector.
Christian Noyer: Monetary and financial research – its impact on policies and society Opening and closing speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Conference for the 20th anniversary of the Bank of France Foundation, Paris, 14 September 2015. *  *  *  Opening speech Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now switch to English, given the international audience and speakers that we are quite lucky to have today. I would first of all like to express the great pleasure I have to open this conference for the twentieth anniversary of the Banque de France Foundation for Monetary, banking and financial economic research. I welcome the prominent speakers who made us the honor of joining us today – Yann Algan from Sciences Po in Paris and Luigi Zingales from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business – and all our chairs and discussants who also are renowned economists in their respective fields. A few words about the topic of this conference now. The idea of this conference is to take a step back and some time to reflect on monetary and financial research in general, and its impact on policies and society. We will thus evoke the role of economics and economists within our society. The two provocative papers discussed today provide a very nice opportunity for such a discussion. They both point out several concerns about economic research and finance.