BoE Chief Economist Huw Pill told CNBC, “Our current assessment is that we don’t think interest rates would need to rise as high as markets are pricing precisely because it would produce a slowdown in the economy that is bigger than we need to get these prices under control.”
“That is why the message has been, yes, maybe the market was pricing in too aggressively over this period of turmoil where bank rate is headed. What we are seeking, are always seeking is to find that balance that gets us back to the 2% inflation target without generating unnecessary and costly problems in the real economy,” he said.
He added that the challenge is to “ensure that inflation, particularly this domestically generated inflation, is evolving consistent with our target in a sustainable way”. At the same time, “also to avoid that we overshoot in the opposite direction and generate a slowdown that is not required.”
The question for us is, even as headline inflation begins to fall, have we done enough with monetary policy to contain those underlying or persistent dynamics on inflation to ensure that they end up consistent with our target over time? And I think the answer to that is, we still think there’s more to do to control that domestically driven wage-price cost dynamic.”
