The Bank of England (BoE) should scrap its rate-setting committee and use quantitative easing as its main monetary tool — before losing its monetary powers altogether, according to a new study.
The bank should also cease targeting inflation and instead focus on nominal (non-inflation adjusted) gross domestic product, "dissident" economist, Anthony Evans, added in the report. This was published on Monday by the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), a U.K. free-market think tank.
UK BANK OF ENGLAND
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"Since the financial crisis, the Bank of England has made important changes to how they conduct monetary policy — such as the introduction of Quantitative Easing and Forward Guidance — and the government has made bold interventions into the banking system. However these drastic measures have failed to identify the root cause of the problem, which is the monetary regime," Evans said in a ASI news release accompanying his report.
The BoE's nine-member Monetary Policy Committee currently sets interest rates with the sole target of keeping inflation at around 2 percent. Most other major central banks also target inflation, with the U.S.'s Federal Reserve combining its price stability mandate with one to achieve maximum employment.
Evans, who describes himself on Twitter as a "dissident monetary economist," said that the BoE should opt for a rules-based system in place of relying on the discretion of its policy committee.
The BoE was not available to comment when CNBC went to publish.
"The Bank of England — and America's Federal Reserve — has done a very poor job of managing our money. They have created artificial booms, followed by genuinely painful busts, through decades of following their unreliable 'discretion'. You cannot fly a modern economy by the seat of your pants: It's time to replace the bank's bumbling with rational rules," ASI Director Eamonn Butler said in the release.