Event

Are higher real interest rates here to stay?

This event hosted by UK think tank NIESR explores the economic forces that underpin the rise in real interest rates and assesses how persistent they are likely to prove.

For much of the period following the Global Financial Crisis, policymakers, businesses and investors became accustomed to an environment of persistently low real interest rates. Low borrowing costs, benign inflation and favourable debt dynamics shaped economic policy for more than a decade. The sharp rise in real interest rates since the pandemic has challenged that assumption, raising an important question for policymakers and markets alike: are we experiencing a temporary adjustment, or a return to the higher real interest rates that prevailed prior to the financial crisis?

Ahead of the Autumn Budget, this webinar will explore some of the economic forces that underpin the rise in real interest rates and assess how persistent they are likely to prove. The panel discussion will examine the structural drivers of real rates and consider whether the conditions that characterised the low-rate era are likely to re-emerge, or whether policymakers must adapt to a permanently different environment. The answers matter enormously for economic policy, with profound implications for the direction of monetary policy, fiscal sustainability and the management of public debt.