David Kenneth MilesCBE (born 1959[1]) is a British economist. Born in Swansea,he has spent his working life in London,in teaching,business and the public sector. He is a professor at Imperial College London,and head of economic analysis at the Office for Budget Responsibility. He was Chief UK Economist of Morgan Stanley bank from October 2004 to May 2009. He had previously been an academic at Birkbeck College in the late 1980s and had worked for Merrill Lynch in the early 1990s. He was appointed to the Bank of England's interest-rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) from May 2009 to June 2012[2] and again from June 2012 to 31 August 2015,before being replaced by Gertjan Vlieghe.[3] According to the Bank of England,"As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy.".[4] In December 2020 he was appointed to the main board ("The Commission") of the central Bank of Ireland. He was appointed to the Budget Responsibility Committee of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in December 2021. He took up that role in January 2022.
In 2003 Miles produced a report for the British Chancellor of the Exchequer to examine why the long-term fixed rate mortgage market is not as popular a product in Britain as in other countries. His 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 Miles's academic research has focused on housing,pensions,monetary policy,asset pricing and ways to make the financial system more stable. More recently he has written about the concept of economic injustice and raised issues about the degree to which reparations for past injustices are warranted. (His paper "The half life of economic injustice" quantifies the extent to which current people may have responsibility for past wrongs).
Miles predicted a substantial fall in real house prices in November 2006.[6]
In 2009 he was asked,along with Gerald Holtham and Professor Berndt Spahn,to be 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.[7]
From June 2009 to August 2015 Miles was on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. In 2011 he published a study of the appropriate balance sheet structure of banks to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis ("Optimal Bank Capital").[8] He concluded that the Basel III agreements on capital requirements for banks set the standard for equity at only about half its appropriate level. In 2012 he began a second term with the Monetary Policy Committee.[citation needed]
In 2016 he was appointed by Her Majesty's Treasury to advise on the measurement and reporting of yields on UK government debt. His report was completed in October 2016 and was subsequently implemented.[citation needed]
He has published in economic journals,written books on macroeconomics,on housing and on fiscal policy,authored government reports and newspaper articles.
Bibliography
Miles, David (1994). Housing, Financial Markets and the Wider Economy. Chichester England New York: Wiley. ISBN9780471952107.
Miles, David; Scott, Andrew (2005). Macroeconomics: Understanding the Wealth of Nations (2nded.). Chichester, England: Wiley. ISBN9780470012437.
Miles, David; Scott, Andrew; Breedon, Francis (2012). Macroeconomics: Understanding the Global Economy (3rded.). Chicester, West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ISBN9781119995715.
Miles, David "The Half Life of Economic Injustice", Philosophy and Economics, volume 38, issue 1, 2022.
↑Bardens, John; Webb, Dominic. "Holtham Commission"(PDF). Retrieved 14 April 2025. Full membership of the Commission was announced in October 2008 with Professor David Miles and Professor Paul Bernd Spahn joining Gerald Holtham
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