What’s going on? Speech given by Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking, Bank of England  Barclays Inflation Conference, London 7 June 2018  I am grateful to William Abel, Harvey Daniell, Bianca Ginelli Nardi, Raf Kinston, Simon Kirby, Elliot Luciani-Kane, Rebecca Maule, Sanjay Odedra, Tom Smith, Pawel Smietanka and Brad Speigner for their assistance in preparing this speech, and Clare Macallan, Michael Saunders and other Bank staff for their helpful comments and suggestions. 1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  An unusual position UK GDP growth has slowed following the Brexit referendum, and it slowed even more in the first quarter of this year. In the MPC’s May Inflation Report we are forecasting that it will remain subdued over the forecast period. If our forecast materialises, annual growth will have been between 1¼ and 2% for five consecutive years from 2016 to 2020. To give some context, annual average GDP growth has been in this range in only eight of the 50 years before that period, and three of those were since the financial crisis. It’s been said before but it bears repeating: the UK economy is in an unusual position. Over the past few years, meanwhile, unemployment has fallen from a high of 8.5% to a forty year low of just 4.2%. Employment has similarly picked up to record highs.
“The Phillips curve: lower, flatter or in hiding?”, speech at the Oxford Economics Society, 14 November 2017. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4  Chart 4: The wage Phillips Curve Wage growth (per cent)  1971-1997  35  1998-2012 30  2013-2017  25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 3  5  7 Unemployment (per cent)  9  11  I want to use my speech today to focus on the implications of the UK’s unusual economic position for inflation and for monetary policy, both in terms of what has happened over the recent past and of what I expect to happen in future. I will focus on three aspects of the economy in particular. First, the ongoing consequences of the vote to leave the EU, and what those have meant and could mean in future for monetary policy. Second, the continued evolution of the labour market and how I expect that to affect inflation and monetary policy in future. And third, developments in the economy at the start of this year: the unexpected weakness of GDP and evolution of inflation. These aspects of the economy are unusual in terms of what they imply for the UK outlook. But as a policymaker I feel reasonably confident, even with the uncertainties, that, together with my colleagues on the MPC, I have a reasonable understanding of what’s going on, and in particular what the implications are for inflation.