Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane, comments reported in the UK Telegraph over the weekend:

  • He signalled that negative interest rates are not an effective tool to fight a UK economic downturn
  • Said policymakers were likely to move even further away from a focus on the "single instrument" of interest rates
  • To instead examine a range of tools
  • "In some ways we're all slightly victims of having been in this privileged position pre-crisis of having a singular instrument called interest rates, that 's why you naturally think, should we do more with a singular instrument? But when the environment changes you have to think more plural. We've been thinking more plural, other central banks have been thinking more plural and indeed doing more plural."

Plenty more from the dovish Mr. Haldane at the article, here

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Thursday this week is the Bank of England policy meeting.