’ s monetary policy easing, the picture is roughly as we might expect. comparing charts 2 and 15, there is little correlation between levels of wages and the change in them over recent years. in other words, the regional distribution of incomes does not appear to have changed materially during the period of monetary loosening. the same is true of unemployment rates ( charts 9 and 12a ). there is some evidence of the higher - wealth regions benefitting more than the lower - wealth regions over the period since the crisis ( chart 3 and 13a ). ( c ) recent monetary policy in august this year, in the light of the eu referendum result, the bank ’ s mpc undertook a further round of monetary policy easing. interest rates were lowered further, to 0. 25 %. and the mpc agreed to undertake a further £70 billion of asset purchases, of which gilts comprised £60 billion and corporate bonds £10 billion. the bank also introduced a term funding scheme ( tfs ) to facilitate the pass - through of lower official interest rates to the retail interest rates facing households and companies. it is too early to assess what impact this further monetary policy loosening will have on activity and unemployment. estimates from the bank ’ s model suggest it could increase activity by around 0. 5 % over a three year horizon and support around an extra 100, 000 jobs. in an environment of heightened uncertainty about future growth and jobs, these gains are not to be sniffed at. in the period since the mpc ’ s easing in august, there have been two pieces of material news about the performance of the economy. the first is that growth in the immediate aftermath of the referendum has been stronger than the bank, and other major forecasters, had expected. for example, growth in the third quarter of 2016 is currently estimated to be 0. 5 %. this compares with 0. 1 % growth in the third quarter expected at the time of the bank ’ s august inflation report. this is welcome news. the main source of this upside news to activity has been the buoyancy of consumers. they appear to have kept calm and carried on spending on the high street, in the car showrooms and in the estate agents. the bank ’ s latest survey of uk households explains why. it suggests uk households ’ perceptions of income and job prospects have, at least so far, been largely unaffected by brexit. that is true too in surveys of consumer sentiment which remain around historical average levels.

the crisis in asia by promptly offering very large amounts of official assistance - $ 17 billion in the case of thailand, $ 43 billion for indonesia and $ 57 billion for south korea. but such official financial help cannot be unlimited and it cannot be provided without strings. it, too, has real dangers. if it were too readily forthcoming it could encourage “ moral hazard ”, especially by encouraging commercial lenders - particularly foreign currency creditors - in the belief that they will be bailed out if things go wrong. that would be likely to add to the problem of potentially volatile capital inflows next time around. not surprisingly, too, there is strong political resistance in many countries, including notably the united states, to the idea that public, i. e., taxpayers ’, money should be used to bail out private creditors, especially foreign creditors. external financing need not come solely from the public sector. private finance would, in principle, serve the same purpose, and in many situations market price adjustments may be sufficient to stem the capital outflow. but, given the extent of the loss of confidence in the asian case, organising private financial support meant in practice persuading existing creditors that their assets would be better protected if they were prepared to leave them in place, especially if other major creditors agreed to do the same and if official support was made available in parallel. but in this case, too, difficult judgements had to be made. there was a danger that, if private creditors had to be in effect coerced into staying put, they would immediately cut their positions elsewhere, while they still could, adding to the international contagion. in fact, in the critically important case of korea, the promise of massive official support failed to restore market confidence. and when it became apparent that the official bilateral financing was in practise available only as the very last resort we had to turn to the commercial bank lenders in the major creditor countries and persuade them to extend the maturity of their loans. it was a dangerous moment. but their constructive response went a long way to resolving the immediate crisis and helped to restore greater financial stability to the region as a whole. the creditor banks are also now in negotiation with indonesia ’ s commercial debtors. the discussion in washington turned to preventative measures for the future. it would have been understandable in the light of the asian experience if there had been some turning back from the path towards greater freedom of international capital movements, and there was some