McCafferty writes in the UK Times
The Bank of England's super-hawk, Ian McCafferty, frets about inflation risks in an op-ed in the UK Times (gated). (Headlines here)
His forecast is hardly fearsome. He said inflation should return to 1.25% in a year's time as the effects of commodities fade.
"By 2017, growth in domestic costs is expected to be running above average, with inflation held to two per cent only by the drag from import prices," McCafferty wrote in the Times. This, to me, is an uncomfortable combination, and the risks around the forecast appear to lie on the upside."
His reasoning is that a hike now would prevent more hikes later.
"If we do not act soon, we run the risk of swapping the current period of very low inflation for one in two to three years' time in which inflation will overshoot our two per cent target more persistently, requiring interest rates to rise more sharply in response," he wrote.
