Inflation – What’s to be Done?

Professor Tim Congdon CBE

The Rt. Hon. Jacob Rees Mogg MP

Dr. Ludger Schuknecht

Baroness Lawlor (in the Chair)

With the cost of living crisis, the public sector strikes and higher wage demands, the policy focus has switched to the value of money.  Has the UK money growth been excessive? Has it caused above-target inflation?

On Wednesday 26^thApril 1 pm – 2 pm, Politeia will be holding a special event to mark the publication of Professor Tim Congdon’s new Politeia pamphlet, Why did inflation take off? And what is to be done about it?. Tim Congdon is Chairman and Founder of The Institute of International Monetary Research at the University of Buckingham. He will discuss The Problem of Inflation – What’s to be Done?

Congdon will consider such points as:

• The surge in UK money growth to an annual rate of 15.4% in February 2021, the highest number since the 1980s,
• The obviousness of forecasts that inflation would then take off to the highest rates since the 1980s,
• The inadequacy of the Bank’s cost-accountancy approach to inflation,
• The culpability of the Bank of England for today’s inflation problem, and
• The proposal that the Open Letter system be strengthened by references to money growth numbers, with commitments to prevent too high and too low money growth.

He will be joined by The Rt Hon Jacob Rees Mogg MP, who served previously as Secretary of State for Business, and Dr. Ludger Schuknecht. Dr. Schuknecht, who will be joining via Zoom, is Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. He has been Visiting Professor, at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Deputy Secretary General, OECD (2018-20) and Chief Economist, the Directorate General Fiscal Policy and International Financial and Monetary Policy, German Ministry of Finance (2011-18). His Politeia publications include Public Spending and the Role of the State: History, Performance, Risk and Remedies. 

If you would like to attend, please write to programme@politeia.co.uk with your name, position, daytime phone number and organisation, and we shall put you on the list. If you would like to bring a guest, please let us have the name and contact details.