The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion. Over the past year, there has been considerable volatility in quarterly output growth. Looking through the influence of temporary factors, overall output appears to have been broadly flat. In large part that reflects sharp falls in particular sectors of the economy that are unlikely to be repeated in 2013. In contrast, the combined output of the ... (full story)