Bank of England's Haldane to quit this year

The Bank of England said on Tuesday that its chief economist, Andy Haldane, will leave the central bank later this year to become chief executive of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.


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Haldane - who has struck the most upbeat tone among BoE policymakers about Britain's prospects for a rapid recovery from the COVID pandemic - will step down from the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) after its June meeting and start his role at the RSA in September. The BoE said it would advertise for a new chief economist in due course.

Here are initial reactions:

JEREMY STRETCH, CIBC WORLD MARKETS

"In a sense you could argue his departure would take away at the margin a little bit of the hawkishness of the MPC...depending on who his replacement is. Not in a scenario where under normal circumstances we'd be thinking about any policy tightening. ... Not sure it necessarily changes the time frame or parameters for any policy response from the BOE materially."

JAMES SMITH, ING

"Markets have initially viewed it as the only major hawk leaving the committee, perhaps the only hawk at the moment ... His comments about the recovery being particularly fast were not shared by all his colleagues."

(Reporting by Sujata Rao-Coverley, William Schomberg; compiled by Mark John)

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