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摘要

Just as the supposedly improbable keeps on happening to banks in the financial crisis, so Britain's economic managers are finding themselves adopting policies they never dreamed would be necessary. The savage downturn induced by the credit crunch has brought the Treasury centre stage, as it throws billions at banks and revives the lost art of active fiscal policy. The Bank of England, for its part, is breaking ever more unconventional ground.rnOn March 5th the central bank advanced to the frontier of orthodox monetary policy, lowering once again the interest rate it pays on the balances that commercial banks hold with it as liquid reserves. The half-point reduction brought the base rate down to 0.5%, probably the final stage in an extraordinarily swift downhill journey from 5% in early October.