A leading UK-based academic, Dr. Swati Dhingra has been named as the first Indian-origin woman to be appointed as an external member of the Bank of England’s interest rate-setting committee. Dhingra is the Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). She specialises in International Economics and Applied Microeconomics. Dhingra studied at Delhi University and has a Masters’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics. She has completed her MS and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a member of the UK’s Trade Modeling Review Expert Panel and LSE’s Economic Diplomacy Commission.
The Bank of England’s independent MPC makes decisions about the operation of the monetary policy of the UK. 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 report, she will join the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) for a three-year term on August 9. Dhingra will replace the current independent member Michael Saunders, who has been in MPC since August 2016. “It will be an honor 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,” she said.
The report said that British Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the appointment of Dhingra last week, in which she was described as a person who would prove valuable to the committee. Each member of MPC specialises in the field of economics and monetary policy.