- BoE's governor Bailey: Unwinding QE "does not seem like an imminent issue in current conditions"
Market news
28 August 2020
BoE's governor Bailey: Unwinding QE "does not seem like an imminent issue in current conditions"
- Structural drivers of low equilibrium interest rates suggest the use of central bank balance sheets for monetary policy will be more long-lived than had been anticipated
- QE clearly acted to break dangerous risk of transmission from severe market stress to the macro-economy, by avoiding a sharp tightening in financial conditions and thus increase in effective interest rates
- There indeed is some evidence that impact of QE over past decade has been largest at times of market dysfunction and illiquidity; of course, available event studies are very few in number
- If effects of QE are more powerful in crisis states of the world, we may need to ensure that we have enough headroom in the future to repeat it; the determinants of QE unwind may therefore be more subtle than previously thought, and the Covid crisis offers new lens through which to assess its role
- We should keep the options to use all our tools as open as possible, so I would conclude that the appropriate policy mix going forwards over a decade may be more nuanced than previously thought
- Covid crisis to date has demonstrated that QE and forward guidance around it have been effective in particular situation
- We also made clear that our box does include other tools, including the possibility of negative rates
- We are not out of firepower by any means, and to be honest it looks from today’s vantage point that we were too cautious about our remaining firepower pre-Covid; but, hindsight is a wonderful thing when you have it
- We need to take on board the message the Covid crisis has reiterated, namely that our tools may be state contingent in their effects
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