David Miles

Who is David Miles?

David Kenneth Miles is a British economist. He is a Professor at Imperial College London and former Chief UK Economist of Morgan Stanley. He was appointed to the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee from June 2009 to June 2012. Miles was appointed for a second term to the MPC in June 2012 and this term will run to 2015.

"As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy." In 2003 he produced a report for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to examine why the long-term fixed rate mortgage market is not as popular a product in the UK as in other countries. The report states: "A great many borrowers focus on the initial cost of debt and do not seem to consider carefully how those payments might change relative to their incomes". Much of his academic research has focused on housing, pensions, monetary policy, asset pricing and ways to make the financial system more stable. He has split his working life between academe, the City and the public sector.

Miles predicted a substantial fall in real house prices in November 2006. In 2009 he was asked, along with Gerald Holtham and Professor Berndt Spahn, to serve on a Commission established by the Welsh Assembly Government to investigate the scope for the Welsh Assembly to have greater fiscal autonomy. The Holtham Commission reported in July 2010.