Abstract
It is, I would claim, desirable for the authorities to have a coherent strategy for the conduct of monetary policy. By coherent strategy I do not necessarily mean hard and fast rules, but certainly a strategy. When one is charged with the conduct of monetary policy, it helps if you can rationalise what you are doing, first of all to yourself, and after that to others in the general public. If there is such a strategy that can be outlined, it is likely that policy itself will be more consistent; that there will be less misinterpretation of what policy measures might imply; and a greater stabilisation of expectations. It is arguable that there was not any such (publicly expressed) strategy in the monetary field between 1985, when the then Chancellor Lawson threw over the broad £M3 target and the end of 1990 when Chancellor Lamont expressed firm adherence to maintaining the parity of £ within the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS).
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© 1992 Stephen F. Frowen and Dietmar Kath
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Goodhart, C.A.E. (1992). British Monetary Policy: October 1990. In: Frowen, S.F., Kath, D. (eds) Monetary Policy and Financial Innovations in Five Industrial Countries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21684-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21684-0_9
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