Monetary Policy: Should UK Interest Rates Rise?

This is a 15 minute revision video on monetary policy in the UK economy and it focuses on a discussion about whether the Bank should now be starting to raise the base rate.

2017 is an important year for the British economy. In the seventh year of recovery from recession, by now it would be common for the Bank of England to be raising monetary policy interest rates higher towards normal levels associated with a zero output gap and an unemployment rate of 5% of the labour force. But these are not normal times and there are good grounds for base interest rates remaining at historic lows.

In the video we look at a number of up-to-date charts on key macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, unemployment, wage growth, house prices, the exchange rate and bank lending.