Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin Q2 June 2011

The Bank’s summary is rather long for a blog post so I’ve cut some of the article summaries.
Each article is available as a separate PDF file (click on title). Alternatively you may download the complete issue (178pp).

Recent economic and financial developments

Markets and operations (281k) This article reviews developments in sterling financial markets, including the Bank’s official operations, between the 2011 Q1 Quarterly Bulletin and 20 May 2011. The article also summarises market intelligence on selected topical issues relating to market functioning.

Research and analysis
Research work published by the Bank is intended to contribute to debate, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Bank or of MPC members.

Assessing the risk to inflation from inflation expectations (118k)
By Clare Macallan and Tim Taylor of the Bank’s Monetary Assessment and Strategy Division and Tom O’Grady of the Bank’s Structural Economic Analysis Division.

International evidence on inflation expectations during Sustained Off-Target Inflation episodes (57k)
By Matthew Corder and Daniel Eckloff of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Unit.
The high level of UK inflation in recent years raises the possibility that inflation expectations may drift upwards, making the period of above-target inflation last for longer.

Public attitudes to monetary policy and satisfaction with the Bank (57k)
By Sally Hills and Clare Macallan of the Bank’s Monetary Assessment and Strategy Division.

The use of foreign exchange markets by non-banks (73k)
By James O’Connor and James Wackett of the Bank’s Foreign Exchange Division and Robert Zammit of the Bank’s Sterling Markets Division.

Housing equity withdrawal since the financial crisis (70k)
By Kate Reinold of the Bank’s Structural Economic Analysis Division.
Some interesting stuff in here about housing value. Not too geeky.

Using internet search data as economic indicators (72k)
By Nick McLaren of the Bank’s Conjunctural Assessment and Projections Division and Rachana Shanbhogue of the Bank’s Structural Economic Analysis Division.
Data on the volume of online searches can be used as indicators of economic activity. This article examines the use of these data for labour and housing markets in the United Kingdom. These data provide some additional information relative to existing surveys. And with further development, internet search data could become an important tool for economic analysis. This article is sufficiently interesting to warrant a post in its own right – and this is what I’ll do with it!

Report

A review of the work of the London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee in 2010 (55k) This article reviews the work undertaken by the London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee during 2010.

Hazel’s comment:
Compared with the post I’ve just written about the repayment of student loans using information from a BIS press release this was a doddle. All links worked first time and went to the right place etc etc. Although getting the HTML correct for the formatting of the individual entries was a bit fiddly.

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