By its own admission, the Bank of England is a “forbidding place”. It is responsible for storing gold bars and setting monetary policy, but is currently best known for making ominous predictions about the economic outlook. Located on Threadneedle Street in the City of London, its headquarters is a neoclassical fortress, with walls so high they seem built to deter anyone from looking in. Can’t We Just Print More Money?, by Bank of England economists Rupal Patel and Jack Meaning, is a well-timed attempt to show the public what goes on inside – and familiarise them with some basic economic concepts. Each chapter tackles a different question, such as “Where does my breakfast come from?” or “Why am I richer than my great-great-grandmother?” The book is punctuated with jaunty anecdotes and neat examples: price increases are explained by reference to Dairy Milk bars; the value of collective bargaining is illustrated with an episode of The Simpsons. Most of the time this chirpy tone works, but it can occasionally grate: “Hopefully, you’ll come to see that [money] is not just a piece of metal or plastic,” the authors write (surely anyone already reading wouldn’t need telling).
This is all “quite different from most things the Bank has published over the last three centuries”, its governor, Andrew Bailey, writes in a foreword. The bank has been attempting to explain economics to the public since at least 2018, when it first launched a series of citizens panels. As living standards have plummeted in the UK, a trend has emerged for talking about things such as “financial inclusion” and “money management”. You might think of this as the Martin Lewis theory of social change: educate people in how to navigate an increasingly unforgiving economy, and they will be able to improve their lot.
