Prime Minister appoints Dr Anne Sibert and Dr Gylfi Zoega members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Iceland
The Prime Minister has today appointed two expert members to the Monetary Policy Committee, as provided for in provisions of Act No. 36/2001, on the Central Bank of Iceland, as subsequently amended. They are Anne Sibert, PhD in economics and professor of Birkbeck College, University of London, and Gylfi Zoega, PhD in economics and professor of the University of Iceland. The Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee is Svein Harald Øygard, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland and his fellow representatives from the Central Bank of Iceland are Arnór Sighvatsson, the bank’s Deputy Governor, and Þórarinn G. Pétursson, its Chief Economist.
About the Monetary Policy Committee
Decisions on applying the monetary policy control mechanisms of the Central Bank of Iceland are taken by the Monetary Policy Committee. In this context, the Bank’s monetary policy control mechanisms include decisions on interest rates, transactions with credit institutions other than those listed in the second paragraph of Art. 7 of the Act on the Central Bank of Iceland, a decision on reserve requirements as provided for in Art. 11 of the same Act, and currency market transactions as provided for in Art. 18 of the Act, which are intended to influence the ISK exchange rate. Decisions by the Monetary Policy Committee must be based on the objectives of the Central Bank of Iceland and on a thorough assessment of the current situation of and outlook for the economy and monetary issues.
The Monetary Policy Committee is comprised of the Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, who chairs the Committee, the Deputy Governor, one of the Bank’s executives responsible for formulating monetary policy and two experts in the field of economic and monetary policy appointed by the Prime Minister.
About the Committee members
Anne Sibert is a professor and head of the School of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics at Birkbeck College in London. She is also a member of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, CEPR. She was previously an economist at the US Federal Reserve in Washington. Her research has focused on macroeconomic issues, and monetary economics especially. She has provided economic advice to numerous institutions and been assistant editor of the Economic Journal in the UK. Anne Sibert graduated with a PhD in Economics from Carnegie-Mellon University in the US in 1982.
After graduating in 1987 with a cand. oecon. degree from the University of Iceland, Gylfi Zoega studied at Columbia University in New Your, where he completed a master’s degree in economics in 1989, an MPhil degree in 1991 and a PhD in 1993. Following his studies, Gylfi carried out research and university teaching abroad. In 2002 he was appointed professor in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Iceland, where he teaches at both undergraduate and graduate levels, in particularly macroeconomics and labour market economics. He is currently head of the Economics department and Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. In addition he serves as visiting professor at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he worked for a number of years before his appointment at the University of Iceland.