But if inflation moves away from the target by more than 1 percentage point in either direction I shall expect you to send an open letter to me setting out the reasons why inflation has moved away from target …and the period in which you expect inflation to return to target’ In 1998 Charlie Bean, now (but not then) the Bank’s chief economist, calculated that open letters might be triggered at least 40% of the time, on the basis of past experience 3 . This did not seem unreasonable at the time. But after 114 monthly decisions, inflation has always been within 1 percentage point of the target. And I take the fact that no Governor has yet sent an open letter as further evidence that there has indeed been an unexpected increase in stability. 2  Mais lecture, June 1997. 3  “The new UK monetary arrangements: a view from the literature”, Charles Bean, Economic Journal 1998. 4  BIS Review 116/2006  Where are we now? Are we now entering choppier waters? The world economy continues to grow at an impressive rate, with few signs of sustained inflationary pressure. Globalisation continues apace. But it is not difficult to think of things that could go wrong, ranging from an outbreak of protectionism, to another sharp surge in oil prices in response to geopolitical events, to a sharp correction in housing markets, which in a number of countries are very richly valued.
But the extraordinary stability of the past decade may have given people an exaggerated idea of what to expect of monetary policy. While the Bank can deliver low inflation, we cannot reliably deliver rock steady growth in output and employment, still less falling unemployment. Whether or not that happens depends on events in the wider world – what economists like to call ‘shocks’ - and other economic policies, including taxes and regulations. All we can do is try to keep demand growing in line with supply. And in fact, most economists a decade ago would have said that the Great Stability, as we have experienced it in the UK, represented a pretty unlikely set of outcomes. The then Governor, Eddie George, said he hoped that low inflation would contribute to a more stable economy but warned: ‘We cannot hope to achieve that with any great precision’ 2 . The MPC’s formal remit from the Chancellor, originally drafted nearly a decade ago and still in force, seems to be predicated on a more turbulent world. It makes specific allowance for situations in which inflation might be thrown sharply off course. It reads: ‘The framework is based on the recognition that the actual inflation rate will on occasions depart from its target as a result of shocks and disturbances. Attempts to keep inflation at the inflation target in these circumstances may cause undesirable volatility in output.