Ben Broadbent: Monetary policy, asset prices and distribution Speech by Mr Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy of the Bank of England, at the Society of Business Economists Annual Conference, London, 23 October 2014. *  *  *  I would like to thank Alina Barnett for research assistance and I am also grateful for helpful comments from other colleagues in particular from Richard Harrison, David Learmonth and Gareth Ramsay. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. A few years ago, I used to take the overground train into work. The line was cluttered with stations – mine was barely 400 yards on from the previous stop. So you can understand why my fellow commuters were less than convinced one morning when, seeking to explain why our train was 20 minutes overdue, the driver said this was “because we left the last station late”. It raised a smile. But it wasn’t an explanation. I confess I have a similar reaction to accounts that seek to “explain” low interest rates, and the behaviour of asset prices more generally, solely by reference to what central banks have done. This is especially true when those accounts go on to attribute significant and lasting redistributive effects to these policies. For example, and at least when they happen to be going up, it’s quite common to hear that equity markets are benefiting from “easy money”.
The Central Bank has been implementing a monetary tightening to offset the secondary effects of supply shocks. Since domestic demand is growing at a moderate pace at the moment, it has been curbing the pass through from cost-push factors. As a matter of fact, the prices of products that do not use food or energy as main inputs have been rather well behaved compared to the prices of products that have food or energy as inputs. However, the fact that first round effects of the supply side shocks have reached unprecedented levels has been affecting inflation expectations adversely. Monetary policy cannot remain indifferent in case of a deterioration in the overall pricing behavior. If supply side shocks last long, their effects will spill over to the other sectors in the economy. A tighter stance is a must in order to control the expectations and to prevent the mutation of supply side shocks into demand shocks. If monetary policy does not react to the disruption in inflation dynamics, supply side price hikes may, after a certain point, easily evolve into a selffeeding vicious circle. Dear Guests, Why did the Central Bank not repeat the strong monetary tightening policy that it had implemented in 2006, but instead opted for a measured and gradual increase in interest rates in 2008? The current conditions differ from the May 2006 fluctuation.