Watch the 2023 conference via our Youtube channel now.

This annual conference brings together policymakers, market economists and leading academics to discuss current issues in monetary and financial stability policy with a deliberate focus on the UK.

The purpose of the conference, which was inspired by the well-known European Central Bank Watchers’ Conference and the US Monetary Policy Forum, was to bring together leading academics, policymakers, and financial market practitioners to discuss and debate salient policy issues facing the Bank of England at this juncture.

The event is co-organised by the Qatar Centre for Global Banking & Finance and the Macro Money and Finance society.

Programme

8.15 - 8.50 Registration & coffee

8.50 - 9.00 Welcome

9.00 - 10.00 Keynote speech: Andrew Hauser (Bank of England)
Chair: Claire Jones (Financial Times)

10.00 - 10.30 Coffee

10.30 - 12.00 Panel 1: Monetary policy

What is the outlook for monetary policy, both in the UK and globally?  How long should the MPC (and other central banks) hold rates at their current level?  How should they monitor whether the upside risks to the inflation outlook are subsiding or not? How much of the pass-through from the MPC’s hike and hold strategy is still to materialise in the data?  Where is inflation likely to settle in the medium-term and how far the Bank might eventually have to cut rates?

Panellists: Silvana Tenreyro (LSE), Rob Wood (Bank of America), Kristin Forbes (MIT)
Chair: Phil Aldrick (Bloomberg)

12.00 - 13.00 Lunch

13.00 - 14.30 Panel 2: Bank of England accountability

How well is the UK’s monetary policy framework functioning? What can be done to enhance (restore?) public confidence in the monetary policy framework after the recent bout of high inflation?  Does the remit need to be reconsidered? Is there sufficient diversity of thought on the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee?  How clear are the lines of separation with fiscal policy and HM Treasury, especially with regards to QE?  What more needs to be done to improve the accountability of the Bank to Parliament?

Panellists: George Bridges (House of Lords), Kate Barker, Martin Wolf (Financial Times)
Chair: Ben Chu (BBC)

14.30 - 15.30 Keynote speech: Tobias Adrian (International Monetary Fund)
Chair: Rachana Shanbhogue (The Economist)

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee

16.00 - 17.30 Panel 3: Labour market dynamics

What we have learned in recent years about: measuring the tightness of the market in real-time; gauging the extent and significance of mismatches between demand and supply in segments of the market; understanding the cyclical and structural factors driving the various aspects of labour supply (immigration, participation, hours worked); and perhaps most important of all, assessing the sensitivity of wages to labour market tightness and the extent of any non-linearity in that relationship.  

Panellists: Jonathan Haskel (Bank of England), Alan Manning (LSE), Katharine Neiss (PGIM Fixed Income)
Chair: Lea Paterson (Independent Non Executive Director and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development)

About the chairs

Claire Jones (Financial Times): Claire Jones is part of the Financial Times' global economy team. She joined the FT in 2011 to cover economics and markets in the UK and the eurozone. She previously was in the publications Washington bureau. She graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Phil Aldrick (Bloomberg): Phil Aldrick is Senior economics reporter at Bloomberg. Previously, he was economics editor and an economics columnist for The Times, covering the daily news and writing two opinion pieces a week.

Ben Chu (BBC): Ben is an experienced journalist, speaker and broadcaster who specialises in economics and current affairs. He is Policy and Analysis Correspondent at BBC Verify. Previously he was the Economics Editor of Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs nightly TV show.

Rachana Shanbhogue (The Economist): Rachana is business affairs editor for The Economist, responsible for the paper’s business, finance and science coverage. She has previously been finance editor, and before that wrote about European economies.

Lea Paterson (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development): Lea Paterson CBE was previously Executive Director, People and Culture, at the Bank of England. Before working for the Bank, Lea worked as a journalist, as Economics Editor at The Times and previously at The Independent. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and started off her working life as a professional economist.

About the panellists

Andrew Hauser (Bank of England) : Andrew Hauser was Executive Director for Markets between 2018 and 2024. Andrew joined the Bank in 1992, and held senior roles across most of our major functions. As Executive Director for Banking, Payments and Financial Resilience, he oversaw our financial risk framework; the operation and strategic development of our payment systems and our wholesale and retail banking operations.

Silvana Tenreyro (LSE): María Silvana Tenreyro CBE FBA is a British-Argentine economist who is professor of economics at the London School of Economics and was an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from July 2017 to July 2023. She was president of the European Economic Association for 2021

Rob Wood (Bank of America): Robert Wood has more than two decades of experience covering the UK economy at the central bank and for investors. He served as Chief UK Economist at Bank of America for nine year, three years as Chief UK Economist at Berenberg and twelve years in a variety of monetary policy roles at the Bank of England, including working with the MPC on producing Inflation forecasts through the financial crisis.

Kristin Forbes (MIT): Kristin J. Forbes is an American macroeconomist and policy adviser currently serving as the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Global Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She has regularly rotated between academia and senior policy positions. From 2014-2017 she was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee for the Bank of England. From 2003 to 2005 Forbes served as a member of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers

George Bridges (House of Lords): Lord Bridges of Headley MBE. George Bridges served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from 17 July 2016 to 14 June 2017. George has worked at The Times and in the commercial broadcasting sector, helping to set up the country’s digital terrestrial television network.

Kate Barker: Dame Kate Barker holds a number of roles, mainly in financial services. She is Chairman of Trustees for the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme, and Chair-Elect of the Universities Superannuation Scheme. She is an NED at Man Group plc, and (until July 2020) at Taylor Wimpey plc.She also chairs the Jersey Fiscal Policy Panel.

Martin Wolf (Financial Times): Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”. He was a member of the UK government's Independent Commission on Banking between June 2010 and September 2011.

Tobias Adrian (International Monetary Fund): Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In this capacity, he leads the IMF’s work on financial sector surveillance, monetary and macroprudential policies, digital money, financial regulation, bank resolution, debt management, capital markets, and climate finance.

Jonathan Haskel (Bank of England): Jonathan Haskel an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee and is a Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London. He was previously Professor and Head of Department at the Department of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London.

Alan Manning (LSE): Professor Alan Manning is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and is co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance's research programme on Community and Wellbeing. From 2009-2012 he was Head of the Economics Department at LSE; from 2004 to 2011 he was a member of the NHS Pay Review Body and from 2016-2020 the Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee.

Katharine Neiss (PGIM Fixed Income): Katharine Neiss, PhD, is Deputy Head of Global Economics and Chief European Economist for PGIM Fixed Income, based in London. Ms. Neiss covers the macro-economic outlook in the UK and euro area, including Bank of England and ECB policy. Her own research focuses on thematic issues, such as monetary strategy and trade, with a particular emphasis on their relevance to Europe

Conference Organisers

Professor David Aikman (Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance, King’s Business School) [contact: david.aikman@kcl.ac.uk]

Dr Richard Barwell (Head of Macro Research at BNP Paribas Asset Management) [contact: richard.barwell@bnpparibas.com]

Professor Paul Mizen (Deputy Director of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence, Kings Business School) [contact: paul.mizen@kcl.ac.uk]

We welcome comments on this event and suggestions for themes to focus on in future years.