Question 3: Using not only the policy tools that have been part of the UK policy mix thus far but also policy tools implemented in other countries, to what extent does the government face a tradeoff between saving lives and preserving livelihoods?
Answer:
No tradeoff at all
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
I would even think that the two are complementary; to save the economy, action will need to be taken to suppress the virus and save lives.
Question 2: How much will the new lockdown measures introduced on Thursday November 5 hurt UK economic activity this year relative to a counterfactual with the milder measures adopted over the summer?
Answer:
The economy will benefit from lockdown
Confidence level:
Very confident
Question 1: How much of the decline in GDP experienced to date would have been avoided in the absence of any lockdown measures or other policy interventions (such as fiscal support)?
Answer:
A small portion of the decline
Confidence level:
Very confident
Comment:
The timing and precise distribution across sectors may have been different.
Question 3: Which of the following best reflects your opinion on the following statement? “The ECB should explicitly recognize unemployment and/or economic growth as a secondary aim, secondary to its price stability mandate.”
Answer:
Disagree
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
I think the current mandate in the Treaty is sufficient to allow concern for issues of economic growth and unemployment to be important in the decision-making of the ECB. The issue is that the flexibility around tolerable inflation is not clearly laid out so it is possible to argue price stability, the primary mandate, is not achieved unless inflation is tightly held around 1.6%. A symmetric target would allow more definite bands in which flexibility could be shown and attention shifted to the secondary mandate.
Question 2: Would you support increasing the ECB’s inflation target to a higher rate of inflation than the current 2% target?
Answer:
Neither support nor oppose
Confidence level:
Confident
Comment:
Here I am more nervous. It is clear that raising the inflation target, if credible, could build capacity in nominal interest rates and reduce the frequency of a binding lower bound on nominal interest rates.
But I worry that announcing an increase when inflation is currently persistently low will not be credible and the move will simply increase the extent of the inflation shortfall. The ECB, or other central bank, would ideally be able to first show that they can get inflation up to a higher level, and then show that they can get it back to the existing target, before announcing the new target.
Failing this, moving to a 2% symmetric target would be an improvement for the ECB in my view. As discussed above, the current objective is close to but below 2%.
The CFM surveys informs the public about the views held by prominent economists based in Europe on important macroeconomic and public policy questions. Some surveys focus specifically on the UK economy (as the CFM is a UK research centre), but surveys can in principle focus on any macroeconomic question for any region. The surveys shed light on the extent to which there is agreement or disagreement among these experts. An important motivation for the survey is to give a more comprehensive overview of the beliefs held by economists and in particular to include the views of those economists whose opinions are not frequently heard in public debates.
Questions mainly focus on macroeconomic and public policy topics. Although there are some questions that focus specifically on the UK economy, the setup of the survey is much broader and considers questions related to other countries/regions and also considers questions not tied to a specific economy.
The surveys are done in collaboration with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Lockdowns and UK Economic Performance
Question 3: Using not only the policy tools that have been part of the UK policy mix thus far but also policy tools implemented in other countries, to what extent does the government face a tradeoff between saving lives and preserving livelihoods?
Question 2: How much will the new lockdown measures introduced on Thursday November 5 hurt UK economic activity this year relative to a counterfactual with the milder measures adopted over the summer?
Question 1: How much of the decline in GDP experienced to date would have been avoided in the absence of any lockdown measures or other policy interventions (such as fiscal support)?
Should the ECB Reformulate its Inflation Objective?
Question 3: Which of the following best reflects your opinion on the following statement? “The ECB should explicitly recognize unemployment and/or economic growth as a secondary aim, secondary to its price stability mandate.”
Question 2: Would you support increasing the ECB’s inflation target to a higher rate of inflation than the current 2% target?
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