The Great Debate

-Alan Clarke is UK economist at BNP Paribas. The opinions expressed are his own-

As expected, the Bank of England left the Bank Rate unchanged at 0.5 percent at the April meeting, the first unchanged decision since September 2008.

The accompanying statement was short and sweet. The Bank has accumulated 26 billion pounds of asset purchases and will take a further two months to complete the planned 75 billion pounds of purchases - see you next month!

It is disappointing that gilt yields haven't remained low - partly because of firmer economic data, but also because the market is wary of the exit strategy. Hence the statement was a bit of a missed opportunity. The Bank has run out of interest rate ammunition and hence is having to use alternative measures including quantitative easing. Some form of verbal intervention, voicing a desire to get gilt yields lower could have been a cheap and easy way to loosen conditions in the economy.

Ultimately we expect the scale and duration of quantitative easing to be more than most expect. Our models suggest that if the Bank Rate could fall below zero, interest rates "should" be -4 percent. That shows the magnitude of the stimulus that is required from unconventional policy. Given this, we expect Bank purchases of assets to amount to as much as double the 150 billion pound that the Bank is currently authorised to spend.

Quantitative easing is called unconventional policy for a reason. It is the last resort. We don't know if it will work; if it does work we don't know how well it will work or how quickly it will work; we don't know how big any side effects will be. If it was so fast and effective then it wouldn't be unconventional - we wouldn't bother moving the Bank Rate, we would use QE instead.

– Lena Komileva is Head of G7 Market Economics, Tullett Prebon –

One of the big historical lessons of this crisis for economic policy is that bringing down the risk-free cost of money – central bank rates or government bond yields – and injecting liquidity into the banking system cannot on their own fix broken credit markets.

Quantitative easing by central banks may help to solve short-term liquidity problems for domestic borrowers and lenders, by going around broken markets during times of extreme financial and economic uncertainty. However, this is no substitute for efforts to restore international credit markets back to health.

Effective policy measures would contain the economic fear and channel private sector incentives – the foundation of free markets – in a way that alters the behaviour of lenders, companies and consumers. The end-game policy strategy cannot be to replace free markets.

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

The dollar is, and will remain, the U.S.’s currency and its own and everyone else’s problem.

The idea of creating a global currency, as espoused by China earlier this week, is interesting, has a certain amount of merit and is simply not going to happen any time soon.

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

The Federal Reserve and U.S. economy have two considerable risks now that quantitative easing is at hand: keeping the dollar from a disorderly decline and figuring out how to dismount from the tiger.

The Fed has cut interest rates to a range of zero to 0.25 percent and said it would use “all available tools” to get the economy growing again, including buying mortgage debt as well as exploring direct purchases of Treasuries.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan have unleashed a series of ever-larger asset bubbles they cannot control.

Now the Fed’s decision to cut interest rates to between zero and 0.25 percent, coupled with a promise to keep them there for an extended period, and the threat to conduct even more unconventional operations in the longer-dated Treasury market risks the biggest bubble of all, this time in U.S. government debt.

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

With the U.S., Japan and Britain — nearly 40 percent of the global economy — facing the threat of deflation, it’s going to be just too easy for one, two or all three of them to get the policy response horribly wrong.

The global economy is so connected, and our experience with similar situations so limited that the scope for error is huge.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Quietly, without fanfare, the Federal Reserve has turned on the printing presses.  The central bank is flooding the market with enough excess liquidity to refloat the banking system — and hopes to generate an upturn in both economic activity and inflation in the next 12-18 months to prevent the economy falling into a prolonged slump.

Since the banking crisis intensified in September, the Fed has been rapidly expanding the credit side of its balance sheet, providing an ever-increasing array of facilities to support the financial system (repos, term auction credit, primary discount credit, broker-dealer credit, commercial paper funding, money market mutual fund liquidity and term securities lending).