Ballooning central bank balance sheets across the U.S., Europe, the U.K. and Japan are "profoundly abnormal", according to Jean-Claude Trichet, the former president of the European Central Bank.
"If you look at the increase in the size of balance sheets since the crisis erupted in 2007, you see the same order of magnitude: at least 12 percent of gross domestic product… You see something which is profoundly abnormal in the U.K., Japan, Europe, and the U.S.," Trichet told CNBC on Friday.
According to its own data, the Bank of England's balance sheet topped 20 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2012, and was roughly four times larger than at the start of 2007.
In the same period, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet reached more than three times its pre-crisis size and neared 20 percent of GDP, while the European Central Bank (ECB)'s balance sheet topped 30 percent of euro zone GDP.