MNI BRIEF: BOE Bailey: Recent Data Strengthen Tightening Case

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey offers no direct guidance to try and shift market expectations over the timing of the first hike in the released text of a speech due later Monday. He says in the speech that recent evidence had strengthened the case for modest tightening but he stressed that views were divided on the Monetary Policy Committee and that uncertainty was high. Speaking to the Society of Professional Economists he underscored the point that earnings growth was become more dispersed rather than uniformly accelerating.

Bailey says that if this was the beginning of a structural change in the economy then it was "not the job of monetary policy to prevent such changes, but rather to ensure that they do not have negative consequences for monetary stability."