Currently, the Bank treats commodity price moves as “one-offs” that are too volatile to be built into its forecasts, assuming instead that they will be constant. However, Mr Broadbent argued before the Treasury Select Committee that the Bank should consider changing its approach.
“The MPC treats these rises as one-off occurances, it assumes that whatever the jump in the commodity price is, the price will then stay there from now on – that has been the single most important forecasting error,” he said. “In an environment where the strongest growth is coming from the parts of the world that consume the most commodities, perhaps you ought to think about doing something different.
“There is an important point over the medium term about whether you continue, in the face of a trend increase in prices, always to assume they are flat.”
Mr Broadbent was speaking shortly after inflation data for April was released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which came in higher than expected at a two-and-a-half-year peak of 4.5pc, against expectations of 4.2pc. <





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