Before the 2008 financial crisis, policy-makers put too much faith in the ability of monetary policy to keep multiple areas of the economy in balance all at once, Andrew Haldane, the Bank of England's executive director for financial stability, has said.

In a speech to the American Economic Association's annual meeting, delivered on January 3 and published today, Haldane said past failures had shown it was impractical for monetary policy to attempt to stabilise output and balance credit growth