Three years ago the Bank of England, which had already cut interest rates to the lowest level in its history, wheeled out a new, unconventional tool to stimulate the economy. It would buy government debt using newly-created cash-a policy known as "quantitative easing" or qe. The Bank is now a market mammoth, owning over 30% of the £940 billion ($1.5 trillion) pool of outstanding government bonds. It is set to get bigger: on February 9th the Bank's monetary-policy committee authorised £50 billion of new purchases over the next three months. But is this strategy working?
展开▼
