The Bank of England is Going to Stop Relying on Data to Make Decisions

The Bank of England is going to rely less heavily on economic data when making interest rate decisions in the future, according to the bank’s deputy governor for monetary policy, Ben Broadbent. Speaking to The Times, Broadbent argued that the impact of Brexit will be felt in the medium-term, but weakness may not show up in the short-term, meaning that the bank will use its judgment rather than putting all its faith in hard data. “We have to balance the short-term data against the medium-term outlook,” Broadbent told Times economics editor Philip Aldrick. “When we say data, it’s a broad-term. We know there is an effect coming, we know the world looks potentially very different. We’re pretty confident that the effect of that uncertainty will weigh on investment. It’s difficult, therefore, to weigh those two things.”