Mervyn King

Mervyn Allister King (born 30 March 1948), is Governor of the Bank of England. He succeeded Sir Edward George on 30 June 2003.

King studied at Wolverhampton Grammar School, King's College, Cambridge (gaining a first class degree in economics in 1969) and St John's College, Cambridge. He also studied at Harvard as a Kennedy Scholar.

He then taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Birmingham. He has also been Visiting Professor at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he shared an office with then Assistant Professor Ben Bernanke. From October 1984 he was Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics.

King joined the Bank in March 1991 as Chief Economist and Executive Director, having been a non-executive director from 1990 to 1991. He was appointed Deputy Governor in 1997, taking up his post on 1 June 1998. In the same year King became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.

An ex-officio member of the Bank's interest-rate setting Monetary Policy Committee since its inception in 1997, he is the only person to have taken part in every one of its monthly meetings to date. His voting style is often seen as "hawkish". Before becoming Governor, he regularly voted for tighter monetary policy than his colleagues. That pattern has continued in a more muted way as Governor: most notably, he was outvoted opposing the MPC's August 2005 interest rate cut, and in June 2007 was in the minority by voting for higher rates. King's willingness on occasion to take a minority position is unusual among central bank leaders.

King is noted for his often-repeated ambition to make monetary policy "boring", by which he means that it should be as predictable as possible by continually focusing on achieving a set inflation target. The term "inflation nutter" was also coined in a paper by King.

King is a fan of Aston Villa F.C., and arranged a game between Bank of England employees and ex-Villa players.^[1] He also briefly found himself commentating on an Ashes test match for BBC radio Five Live in 2005, whilst being interviewed by Simon Mayo.

The University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Law in 2006. He is a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

In a manner exemplifying his commitment to keep inflation in Britain low and stable at the target rate of 2.0%, in 2008 Mr King declined a pay increase from the Bank of England, in the region of £125,000 per annum, which would have brought his final salary up to the £400,000 mark.

King took an unusual decision on the 24th March 2009 by saying any plan for a second fiscal stimulus by the UK Government had to be done with caution.^[2] He is also the first incumbent Governor of the Bank of England to be received in audience by Queen Elizabeth II.^[3]

In his Mansion House speech on 17 June 2009, King appeared to criticise the British Government for widening the Bank's financial regulation remit, while not giving him greater power to fulfill this role.^[4]

Personal life

King's wife, Barbara Melander, is a Finnish interior designer and comes from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland.^[5]They were married in a private ceremony in a central Helsinki church in 2007.^[6]

References

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee
Governor: Sir Edward George (June 1997–June 2003)
June 1997-July 1997:	George | Davies | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith
August 1997:	George | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith
September 1997-November 1997:	George | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius
December 1997-May 1998:	George | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius | Budd
June 1998-May 1999:	George | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius | Budd | Vickers
June 1999-May 2000:	George | King | Buiter | Goodhart | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius | Vickers | Wadhwani
June 2000-September 2000:	George | King | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius | Vickers | Wadhwani | Allsopp | Nickell
October 2000-May 2001:	George | King | Plenderleith | Clementi | Julius | Wadhwani | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean
June 2001-May 2002:	George | King | Plenderleith | Clementi | Wadhwani | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean | Barker
June 2002:	George | King | Clementi | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker
July 2002-August 2002:	George | King | Clementi | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Bell
September 2002:	George | King | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Bell
October 2002-May 2003:	George | King | Allsopp | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Bell | Large
June 2003:	George | King | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Bell | Large | Lambert
Governor: Mervyn King (June 2003–present)
July 2003-June 2005:	King | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Bell | Large | Lambert | Lomax
July 2005-January 2006:	King | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Large | Lambert | Lomax | Walton
February 2006-March 2006:	King | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lambert | Lomax | Walton | Gieve
April 2006-May 2006:	King | Nickell | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lomax | Walton | Gieve
June 2006:	King | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lomax | Walton | Gieve | Blanchflower
July-August 2006:	King | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lomax | Gieve | Blanchflower
September 2006:	King | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lomax | Gieve | Blanchflower | Besley
October 2006 - June 2008:	King | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Lomax | Gieve | Blanchflower | Besley | Sentance
July 2008:	King | Bean | Barker | Tucker | Gieve | Blanchflower | Besley | Sentance | Dale