Laurence Boone

MI Summit 2013 - London: Quantitative Exiting: The Road Ahead for Monetary Policy

Laurence Boone, Jason Cummins, Spencer Dale, Brian Sack, David Zervos

Senior officials from the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, and ECB discussed the $10 trillion expansion of global central bank balance sheets, highlighting that future limits are defined more by political legitimacy and market stability than strict GDP thresholds. Panelists explained that recent policy shifts prioritize keeping interest rates low to stimulate growth, with the Fed planning to maintain a massive balance sheet until at least 2020 while the Bank of England commits to eventually selling sovereign assets to preserve credibility. While experts agree that the expanded monetary base poses limited inflation risk through tools like reverse repos, they acknowledge the trade-offs include a "Faustian bargain" of accepting asset bubbles to achieve macroeconomic stability.