The Bank of England has the task of setting base interest rates to try and meet the government’s inflation target of 2%. The base rate is the rate at which the commercial banks have to borrow from the Bank of England. The Bank manages the money supply so that commercial banks usually end up having …
Definition of Base Rate. In the UK, the base rate is the term given to describe the interest rate which the Bank of England control. The base rate is the rate that the Bank charge commercial banks and discount houses. It is also known as the Repo Rate. The base rate is used to influence …
Definition of base year: the starting point for the construction of an index number series. The base period or base year refers to the year in which an index number series begins to be calculated. This will invariably have a starting value of 100. For example, in constructing the Consumer price index, the government may …
Black Wednesday refers to the date 16 September 1992, when the UK was forced out of the ERM. The Exchange rate mechanism was a key policy tool for the Conservative government. The logic of joining the ERM was that the chancellor Nigel Lawson believed that being in a fixed exchange rate Would help to reduce …
Definition: The announcement effect refers to the fact that behaviour can be changed merely by announcing a future policy change. For example, if the government say that petrol tax will increase in 6 months time, people may start spending less money now; they may also look for alternatives to the car. Announcement effects will be …
Bretton woods was a semi-fixed exchange rates set up in the post-war period. The Bretton Woods exchange rate system had a system of pegged exchange rates with currencies pegged to the dollar. The dollar was fixed to the price of gold ($35 an ounce) – giving the US Dollar a fixed value. The currencies in …
Definition of The Business cycle – The Business cycle refers to the cyclical nature of economic growth. Typically the business cycles involves a period of rapid growth followed by slower growth or in some cases a recession. The business cycle is sometimes referred to as the ‘trade cycle’ or just economic cycle. Some business cycles …
Definition of competitive devaluation: When a country tries to devalue its currency to increase its international competitiveness. However, this often encourages other countries to also devalue leading to only temporary increases in the competitiveness of exports. In competitive devaluation, a country only gains a temporary advantage until the next country devalues as well. Devaluation can …