Macroeconomics

Julia Giese, Michael McLeay, David Aikman and Sujit Kapadia Central banks have been using a range of monetary policy and macroprudential tools to maintain monetary and financial stability. But when should monetary versus macroprudential tools be used and how should they be combined? Our recent paper develops a macroeconomic model to answer these questions. We … Continue reading Unifying monetary and macroprudential policy →

Ivan Yotzov, Philip Bunn, Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen and Gregory Thwaites Inflation in 2023 remains elevated across many advanced economies. Existing studies have considered the contribution of profits to persistently high inflation in the US, euro area and UK. To add to this debate, we recently asked firms in the Decision Maker Panel about their … Continue reading Profit margins and firm price growth: evidence from the Decision Maker Panel →

Saleem Bahaj, Robert Czech, Sitong Ding and Ricardo Reis Few topics captivate our attention like the enigma of inflation. Understanding where the market thinks inflation is headed is crucial for policymakers, investors, and anyone who wants to keep their financial ducks in a row. And that’s where inflation swaps come into play. They are like … Continue reading Decoding the market for inflation risk →

Sophie Piton, Ivan Yotzov and Ed Manuel How have profits behaved in this context of sustained level of inflation? In part, the answer depends on how ‘profits’ are defined. Some broad measures suggest increasing profits, but conflate market and non-market sector dynamics and omit important corporate costs. We construct an alternative measure of corporate profits … Continue reading Profits in a time of inflation: some insights from recent and past energy shocks in the UK →

Hela Mrabet and Jack Page The rise in commodity prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had a direct and noticeable impact on consumers’ bills for energy and food. But firms also felt the brunt of higher costs. How did firms pass on these cost shocks through the supply chain and all the way onto consumer … Continue reading How do firms pass energy and food costs through the supply chain →

Gerry Gunner and James Waddell Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) is a relatively new form of consumer credit that you might have noticed as a payment option when shopping online or in person. However, there is little analysis in the public domain about who is using BNPL credit in the UK and its contribution to total household debt. … Continue reading Shining light on ‘shadow credit’ – what is Buy-Now-Pay-Later and who uses it? →

Harvey Daniell and Andre Moreira The latest developments in the labour market are often central to monetary policy decisions. We outline a framework for mapping labour market indicators to near-term employment and pay growth, drawing on established insights from the ‘nowcasting’ literature. The key benefits of our approach are: the ability to map a range … Continue reading Forecasting near-term trends in the labour market →

Kim Nyamushonongora and Oscar Spencer 99.9% of UK businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), employing 61% of the UK population. Yet, we know so much more about large businesses, how they function and particularly how they finance themselves. SMEs have been referred to as the backbone of economies around the world. Therefore, SME’s access … Continue reading A quick dive into SME finance →

Marco Garofalo, Simon Lloyd and Edward Manuel The economic consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war have brought the importance of sharp changes in commodity prices, such as oil, to centre stage. While many have focused on understanding the impact of these developments on the central projection for the macroeconomic outlook, this post investigates the balance of … Continue reading Fuelling the tail: inflation- and GDP-at-Risk with oil-supply shocks →

Nicholas Vause and Carolin Pflueger Recently, Pflueger, Siriwardane and Sunderam (2020) proposed a new measure of investor risk perceptions based on the cross-section of stock prices. Using that measure, they found that when risk perceptions are high, the cost of capital of risky firms is high and subsequently real investment and employment decline in the … Continue reading Risk perceptions and economic activity in the United Kingdom →