15 December 2008

The Q4 2008 edition of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin is published today. It contains the following articles and reports:

• Foreword by Spencer Dale,Chief Economist and Executive Director – Monetary Analysis and Statistics.

• Markets and operations. This regular quarterly commentary discusses recent developments in global capital markets and reviews the Bank's official operations over the period.

• The financial position of British households: evidence from the 2008 NMG Research survey. This article discusses the results from the latest survey of households' financial situation carried out for the Bank. Households experienced a decline in the income they had available after meeting household bills and had saved less than they had previously expected. Many households thought that credit had become harder to access, and more households were finding their debt to be a burden.

• Understanding dwellings investment. This article considers the incentives to invest in dwellings relative to the costs. Investment in dwellings responded sluggishly to rising house prices in the earlier part of this decade, reflecting lags in the construction cycle and increasing costs arising from the planning process. But such factors have not prevented an abrupt decline in construction activity more recently as house prices have fallen.

• Price-setting behaviour in the United Kingdom. This article reports the results of a survey undertaken by the Bank earlier this year of companies' price-setting behaviour. Over the past decade a significant number of companies have increased the frequency of price changes and nearly half change their prices within three months of an increase in costs or a fall in demand.

Note to Editors
The Quarterly Bulletin is available on the Quarterly Bulletin pages.

Copies of the Quarterly Bulletin are available from:
Publications Group, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, EC2R 8AH
Tel: 020 7601 4030 Fax: 020 7601 3298
mapublications@bankofengland.co.uk