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Article: Unboring; Interest rates.(Monetary policy becomes surprisingly interesting)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- August 20, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Monetary policy gets interesting
MERVYN KING, the governor of the Bank of England, has long aspired to make monetary policy boring. But the meeting, in early August, of the Bank's committee which sets interest rates was unusual.
For one thing, it was the 100th meeting since the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was given control over the level of interest rates by the incoming Labour government in 1997. For another, the MPC decided to cut interest rates from 4.75% to 4.5%. It was the first reduction in more than two years.
What's more, that decision was a close-run thing, as the minutes of the meeting, published on August 17th, revealed. ...