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Dear All 
 
Assuming that Jim Thomas means the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of 
England, then the claim that there are no women economists on the Panel is 
incorrect. The current committee includes Kate Barker, the chief economist 
for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Before that it included 
DeAnne Julius, who was chief economist at British Airways I think. 
 
I don't dispute the wider point, though, and note that they have not, so 
far as I know, been able to cope with having two women on the committee at 
the same time! 
 
As a complete aside, the problems with MPC membership raised in the media 
when it was first formed related not to gender (what a surprise!) but to 
other forms of representativeness. As I recall, newspapers were 
particularly concerned that DeAnne Julius was the only one with a clear 
background in industry (as opposed to academic economics and City 
institutions) and also with the fact that none of them had mortgages. One 
paper even printed photos of their houses in order to show how far removed 
the committee was from the lives of 'ordinary' people whose decisions it 
was attempting to influence. 
 
Best wishes 
 
Robert Evans 
Cardiff University School of Social Sciences 
 
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