Speeches by Yang.

“We have taken the hint.”

“Looking forward to this year, with the changes in inflation expectations that you have now—”

“I have a question about your responses to potential new data and new measures. In our last session, we talked about how the Government’s intervention on energy bills, in terms of fiscal policy, had brought down headline CPI. Given that all three of the scenarios that you have projected have quite a significant output g…”

“There may be fiscal and other measures—we will talk about food later in this session—but what do you see as the purely macroeconomic impact of that reduction on CPI in terms of how it affects the output gap and inflation?”

“I just want to press more on my colleague’s line of questioning about the Treasury’s measures. Would it be normal, when the Treasury is looking at interventions that change prices—lowering the cost of living—to have that conversation with you to understand your reaction function to different measures, or is that not pa…”

“I am sure you are all thinking all the time.”

“Has some of that modelling been published?”

“Do you see volatility as introducing more uncertainty, or is it directional, if you see what I mean, in terms of rates?”

“Does that have any impact on monetary policy?”

“I will start with my second-favourite topic, the gilt market. Dr Mann, you gave a speech a few days ago, talking about the increase over the past few years in hedge fund trading in the UK gilt markets. What impact does that have on volatility and on monetary policy, from your perspective?”

“Understood.”

“That takes me to my next question, on everyone’s favourite topic: quantitative tightening. The MPC is due to make a decision later this year about the pace and scale of that. In explaining your decision from the previous year, each of you had slightly different ideas about how quickly the pace of QT should go. I would …”

“This discussion centres on how we improve the pre-election and post-election discussion, the democratic discussion, of fiscal measures and economic policy overall. Ms van Geest, I was very interested in hearing you saying that in the UK you felt that, because we have the IFS and NIESR—we have many other universities an…”

“Professor van Geest, you mentioned that the CPB would not take your Treasury’s expenditure figures for granted. It would make its own assessment, which may be higher. Institutionally, what has given you the security to do so without being dragged into questions of impartiality and politics?”

“You would rather that the Treasury was more robust in setting out its own case.”

“Jeremy Hunt’s former chief of staff, Adam Smith, has written a very interesting account of some exchanges that he may have had with you and your colleagues, arguing that at the time their team placed a lot of emphasis on trying to convince the OBR of certain elements of its supply-side macro forecast. Would that energy…”

“The benefit of doing so would be that there would be fewer of the exchanges that were detailed by Jeremy Hunt’s team and that, I am sure, have continued since to apply pressure to encourage and persuade the OBR to change its mind about certain elements of the OBR supply-side forecast. Would that be better absorbed by t…”

“I am asking more about the supply-side forecast rather than the fiscal forecast. To give an example from Adam Smith’s article—I am talking about the chief of staff rather than the economist, just to be clear—he mentioned that at one point Jeremy Hunt’s team had brought the Chief Medical Officer to a meeting with the OB…”

“I am just reflecting on the institutional set-up. Of course, I am sure that you are open to debate and would never not engage, but you have a team of about a dozen economists, and Departments all across Government are trying to bring you their case and tell you why it might affect the supply side and increase growth. T…”

“Thank you for being professional. To zoom out a bit more, Professor Miles, we are discussing the impact of the current fiscal framework on your ability to do your work. Again, I am sure that you will demur to saying that it is down to politicians to set the fiscal framework, but are there parts of the fiscal framework …”