ProfessorDavidMiles

Summary

David Miles is Professor of Financial Economics at Imperial College Business School.

My current research focuses on policy issues connected with financial stability, fiscal sustainability, the housing market and the setting of monetary policy. Some ideas on the evolution of unfairness in the distribution of resources are explored in recent work.

I am a member of the Budget Responsibility Committee of the Office for Budget Responsibility. 

I am a member of the Commission of the Irish Central Bank. Between May 2009 and September 2015 I was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England.

Read my cv   

Here are some recent policy orientated papers:

 Economic Policy  Paper on house prices

 A paper on house prices and interest rates over the past 40 years  (published in October 2022 edition of Economic Policy)  is available here.

A related recent talk on "House prices: a tale of interest rates, demographics and work from home" can be viewed here. 

Changing demographics and their economic effects

A paper (from the Journal of the Economics of Ageing) explores "Macroeconomic Impacts of Changes in Life Expectancy and Fertility". It is available here. 

The State of the Universities Pension Scheme:

This paper analyses the risk inherent in the Universities pensions scheme (the USS). It is joint work with James Sefton and can be accessed here 

A Financial Times article outlines the main conclusions of the analysis. You can see that article here

A paper outlining a way forward out of the current impasse with the USS is available here.  

Updated and extended calculations (as at December 22nd 2021) on the state of the USS and on the way forward are available here. 

UK Economic and Fiscal Outlook:

The latest analysis of the Budget Responsibility Committee of the OBR is available here. An assessment of the UK's  longer-term fiscal sustainability is here.  My evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee on fiscal sustainability from February 2024 can be found here.  

COVID-19 policy papers:

A March 2021 paper assesses the UK government's strategy on easing of restrictions as the vaccinations are rolled out across England. You can see it here:

How fast should social restrictions be eased in England? 

An August 2020 paper assesses the cost and benefits of the UK lockdown. This is joint work with health researchers Mike Stedman, of RES Consortium, and Adrian Heald of Manchester University.  You can access it here:

Living with COVID-19: Balancing costs against benefits in the face of the virus

A presentation outlining some of the ideas is here (from about 20 minutes in).

My October 2020 Evidence to the Treasury Committee at the UK Parliament on the policy towards COVID is available here.

Latest comments and columns: 

A podcast hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales analyses the fiscal and economic implications of population ageing in the UK. It is available here.

A podcast with Paul Jonson of the IFS discusses the economic fallout from COVID and the implications for fiscal and monetary policy. You can listen to it here. 

An extended discussion of what COVID and Brexit mean for the UK is available here

A VOX column looks at costs and benefits of the lockdown to counter the COIVID-19 virus. The UK lockdown: balancing costs against benefits

Another recent VOX comment and Times op ed considers the use of extraordinary monetary policy in the COVID 19 crisis. You can access it here: QE is not helicopter money but it is very useful

Latest academic research:

1. A joint paper with James Sefton on the implications of greater opportunities to work from home on the housing market and household welfare. The CEPR Discussion paper is available here

2. A paper on the way in which economic injustice evolves over time is: The half life of economic injustice   This paper appeared in 2022 in the journal Economics and Philosophy. A VOXEU blog on this paper is available here. A recorded discussion of the paper from VOXEU is here.  

3. A paper assessing how far the COVID19 virus might have spread - and the inherent uncertainty about such estimates. The paper "Assessing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus In The Absence of Mass Testing ", appeared in the CEPR  COVID Economics online journal. A link to the CEPR volume is here. It is joint work with Oscar Dimdore-Miles of Oxford University. A related paper is to appear in the International Journal of Clinical Practice and is here. 

4. A recent paper undertaken with economists at the Bank of England analyses why UK house prices have risen so much over the past 50 years and whether current values are sustainable. UK House prices and three decades of declines in real interest rates.

5. A May 2017 public lecture on the future of housing markets gives a non technical summary of work on the evolution of housing conditions over long horizons. The lecture, "What Will a House Cost in 100 years?" is available at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UeTmyYV1QU

6. A more technical paper on the future of housing is "House prices and growth with fixed land supply" .  This is a joint paper with James Sefton and is in The Economic Journal. 

Monetary Policy and Financial regulation: 

I am involved with the co-ordination between monetary policy and financial stability. One strand of research which reflects this is on the use of macro-prudential policy tools and, specifically, the setting of bank capital requirements. My March 2013 paper (“Optimal Bank capital”, Economic Journal) explores the appropriate way to set bank capital requirements.

In 2019 I was asked by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to assess their proposals for substantial increases in the required amount of equity funding for banks. My report can be found here; the RBNZ summary of this assessment is here.  

Videos

A recent talk on "House prices: a tale of interest rates, demographics and work from home" can be viewed here. 

A short video on financial stability and bank capital

Capital Requirements, Monetary Policy and Bank Risk

A short video on issues with the design of mortgage contracts is available at: 

Mortgage Markets, Problems and Prospects

Papers in progress:

Miles, D, Fazio, M and Gimber, A "Limiting Mortgage Debt: Aggregate Demand Externalities and Housing Market Distortions". 

Miles, D and Du, Chuan , Capital Requirements, Monetary Policy and the Fundamental Problem of Bank Risk Taking     

Du, Chuan and Miles D "Interaction Between Monetary Policy and Regulatory Capital Requirements"

Miles, D and Schanz, J “Should central banks provide reserves via repos or outright bond purchases?"

recent Essays and thought Pieces:

An essay on UK population growth and the standard of living recently appeared in the Times newspaper (30 November 2019). A version of this essay is available here. 

Review of "Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World” by Adam Tooze. Published in the Journal of Business, 2019. 

The Drift away from capitalism should be a cause for concern, an op ed with Tony Yates from The Times of July 2018.

Brexit, financial markets and the wider economy, in a new volume edited by Franklin Allen (published October 2017). 

Why are the recent tax changes on rented properties in the UK bad? (November 2016)

Is there really a crisis in economics? (Financial Times January 2017).

(If you cannot access this from the Financial Times link above the then use link here which will get you the article). 

some recent publications:

Miles D "The Half Life of Economic Injustice"   Economics and Philosophy. 

Miles, D and Dimdore-Miles, O “Assessing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus in the Absence of Mass Testing", forthcoming The International Journal of Clinical Practice. 

Miles D and Dimdore-Miles, O   "Measurement Without Testing: Assessing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus ", COVID Economics, volume 16, May 2020, pp 161-76.

Miles, D; Stedman, M and Heald, A  “Stay at Home, Protect the National Health Service, Save Lives”: A cost benefit analysis of the lockdown in the United Kingdom, forthcoming in the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

Dimdore-Miles, O and Miles, D "Assessing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus in the Absence of Mass Testing", Covid Economics, issue 16, May 2020.  

Miles, D; Stedman, M and Heald, A  "Living with COVID-19: Balancing Costs Against Benefits in the Face of the Virus", National Institute Economic Review, number 253, August 2020. 

Miles, D; Panizza, U; Reiss, R and Ubide, A:   The Geneva Report on "Inflation and the Great Recession" , October 2018.

It is available here.

 

Miles, D “Inflation, Employment and Monetary Policy: Objectives and Outcomes in the UK and US Compared”,  Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

Miles, D "Housing, leverage and stability in the wider economy”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

Miles, D and Schanz, J “The Relevance or Otherwise of the Central Bank’s Balance sheet”,  Journal of International Economics

Joyce, Miles, Scott and Vayanos "Quantitative Easing and Unconventional Monetary Policy" The Economic Journal.

TALKS AND SPEECHES ON MONETARY POLICY

March 2017 Evidence to parliamentary Treasury Committee on effectiveness of monetary policy since 2008 is here.

You will find talks, speeches and comments on monetary policy here.  

 

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