London— Bank of England (BoE) policy maker Kristin Forbes has a message for her colleagues as her term ends: don’t leave it too late to rein in consumer prices. "For a period now, we have been underestimating the inflationary pressures — I wouldn’t be surprised if we continued to do that," she said in an interview at her BoE office on Monday. Rising domestic pressure "does suggest there’s a cost to waiting". US-born Forbes, who leaves the central bank at the end of this month, has voted for higher interest rates at each of the past three policy meetings, even as the British economy shows signs of weakening. Her argument is that inflation is being changed fundamentally by the pound’s 15% depreciation since the nation voted to leave the EU. Economists raised their forecast for UK inflation in Bloomberg’s latest monthly survey and now see it reaching 3% by the end of the year, up from 2.9% previously. They see economic growth rebounding to 0.4% this quarter from 0.2% in the previous th...
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