ABSTRACT
The perception of how monetary policy works has in the United Kingdom and elsewhere undergone a profound change. To understand how this has come about it is instructive to look at the views of the leading policy makers and practitioners. This chapter presents a representative collection of lectures that provide an interesting guide to the developing views on the monetary policy over the late twentieth century. Before operational independence was granted to the Bank of England, chancellors of the exchequer could be regarded as practitioners as well as designers of monetary policy. The first chancellor to set out his views on the conduct of monetary policy in one of the Mais Lectures was Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1981. In the postscript to his lecture, Tony Blair reviewed the success of some of the changes he had discussed earlier. Again emphasis was placed on macroeconomic stability and on the long term.
