Silvana Tenreyro, who sits on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, has defended the notion of flexible exchange rates, at a time when many policy-makers are questioning whether that is the correct approach.

In a speech that challenged conventional assumptions in several areas of economics, Tenreyro said it was important to remember the “general equilibrium” aspects of each problem, or how economies behave when seen as a complete system.

Recent work on trade, notably by