Former US Federal Reserve chair to lead Bank of England review on economic forecasts

By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Ben Bernanke, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, will lead a review of the Bank of England’s economic forecasting amid concern that inaccurate predictions about growth and inflation hampered the central bank’s efforts to combat Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. Bernanke, who served as Federal Reserve chair from 2006-2014, will examine how procedures and analysis affected the decisions of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, which has approved 13 consecutive interest rate increases as it battles stubbornly high inflation. Some business leaders and government officials have suggested the bank’s response to the crisis was hamstrung by overly pessimistic forecasts of a recession that never materialized and overly optimistic expectations for a rapid drop in inflation.