“The work of the committee is of great importance as the UK faces an exceptional cost of living crisis amid the global challenges of the pandemic and the war. It will be an honour to learn from the Bank’s vast expertise and regional visits, ‘to listen and to explain’, and to bring evidence to bear on the crucial policy decisions of the committee.” – This is how Dr Swati Dhingra described her new role after she was appointed as the first British Indian female professional to be appointed as an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England by UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
An Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), specialising in international economics and applied microeconomics, Dr Dhingra will join the MPC on August 9 for a three-year term.
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Sunak announced the appointment last week: “Dr Swati Dhingra’s experience in international economics will bring valuable new expertise to the MPC. I am delighted to appoint her to this role and look forward to seeing her contribution to policymaking in the coming years.”
Dhingra, who studied at the University of Delhi and completed her Masters from the Delhi School of Economics, will replace current external member, Michael Saunders, who has been on the MPC since August 2016. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, welcomed the move saying the academic’s “insights and perspective” will be hugely beneficial to the Bank’s discussions.
“We will benefit from her extensive research in international economics,” he said.
Besides her role at the London School of Economics, Dhingra is an elected member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society and is on the Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed ‘Review of Economic Studies’ and an Associate Editor for the ‘Journal of International Economics’. She is also a Research Associate on the Trade Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance, and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
She completed her MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a member of the UK’s Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and LSE’s Economic Diplomacy Commission in the past. She is currently a Director of the Royal Mint Museum and a member of the Steering Group for “The Economy 2030 Inquiry” research project.
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The Bank of England’s independent Monetary Policy Committee makes decisions about the operation of monetary policy of the country. It comprises the Governor of the Bank of England, its three Deputy Governors, one member of the Bank with responsibility for monetary policy and four external members who are appointed by the Chancellor.
According to the UK government’s Treasury department, the appointment of external members to the MPC is designed to ensure that the committee benefits from thinking and expertise in addition to that gained inside the Bank.
