Has Quantitative Easing made central banks ‘prisoners of the market’?

At 3:00pm the Committee will hear from:

• Peter Praet, former Chief Economist of the European Central Bank
• Daniel Gros, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

At 4:00pm the Committee will hear from:

• Stephen G. Cecchetti, Rosen Family Chair in International Finance at the Brandeis International Business School

These evidence sessions will be held remotely and streamed on Parliament TV.

Question they are likely to face include:

• Do central banks lack a clear exit strategy from QE?
• Have the differences between the ECB’s QE programme and the Bank of England’s led to any tangible differences in stimulating the ‘real economy’?
• What risks have the growth of central banks' balance sheets created?
• Will the ECB’s decision to expand its QE programme have an impact on the policies pursued by the Fed and the Bank of England?
• Do central banks require new mechanisms of accountability if their mandates are expanded?
• How vulnerable are countries with high levels of debt and large central bank balance sheets to a return of sustained inflation?

More on this inquiry

The committee is examining Quantitative Easing in the context of the Bank of England’s operational independence, its accountability and the transparency of its decision-making. It is also considering the economic effects of QE, what risks are entailed, its distributional impacts and the future of the programme.

Last week the committee took evidence from:
Adam Posen, President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University; Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, Senior Fellow and Grantee, Institute for New Economic Thinking; and Charles Goodhart, CBE, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance with the Financial Markets Group at the LSE.
You can watch the sessions back on Parliament TV.

More on the Economic Affairs Committee

The Economic Affairs Committee is one of the five permanent investigative committees in the House of Lords and is charged with considering economic affairs.

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