The revolving door is not an American phenomenon.
Hedge fund manager and former Bank of England exec Gertjan Vlieghe has been appointed as the new external member of the Bank Of England’s Monetary Policy Committee.
Vlieghe, who served as economic assistant to ex-BoE governor Lord Mervyn King, is replacing David Miles, whose second term on the committee is up at the end of next month. Vlieghe will officially begin on September 1st.
The appointment to Bank Of England’s nine-member MPC comes as the discussion surrounding raising interest rates heats up. Given six years of ultra-low interest rates, a number of policymakers say it is close to time to boost rates. Governor Mark Carney has already told borrowers to get ready for a rate increase, and dropped broad hints it might happen around year end.
Statement from UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on Vlieghe joining Bank Of England
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne commented in announcing the appointment: “Dr Vlieghe is an economist of outstanding ability who brings experience from his time at both the Bank of England and the financial services industry to the role and will be a strong addition to the MPC.”
Bank Of England governor and chairman of the MPC Carney also spoke positively of Vlieghe’s appointment, saying “[his] insight, judgment and perspective will be invaluable to the committee in the coming years”.
More on Gertjan Vlieghe
Vlieghe is currently employed as a senior economist at hedge fund Brevan Howard Asset Management, and has served as a director at Deutsche Bank. He has earned a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, with a 2005 thesis titled “Credit Market Imperfections: Macroeconomic Consequences and Monetary Policy Implications”.
Of interest, the last chapter of the thesis looks at how monetary policy should be set after an adverse productivity shock. Vlieghe determined that the central bank should permit a temporary rise in inflation to create more stable economic output and asset prices.
“It was shown that, in the case of productivity shocks, the presence of both types of rigidities creates a trade-off between inflation variability and output variability,” Vlieghe wrote in his thesis, continuing to highlight that “the cost of stabilising inflation too aggressively can be large”.
