Forward guidance: When will the BoE raise interest rates?

John Clarke chief investment officer at GHC Capital Markets   2016 at earliest The first increase in the bank rate remains several years away. Admittedly unemployment is currently only 0.6 percentage points above the Monetary Policy Committee’s 7% threshold, but it is only as low as this because of output per worker – which has increased by an average of 2.2% a year since 1960 – has fallen by 0.9% a year over the last five years. Although some of this undoubtedly reflects the severity of the recession – causing a permanent reduction in the economy’s productive potential – as t...