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'Mervyn Allister King' (born March 30 1948) is Governor of the Bank of England. He succeeded Sir Edward George
on June 30 2003.
King studied at Wolverhampton Grammar School, King's College, Cambridge, St John's College, Cambridge, and Harvard; he then taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Birmingham. He has also been Visiting Professor to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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 June 1 1998.
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.
Cambridge University awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Law in 2006.
King is married to Finnish businesswoman Barbara Melander. The couple married on May 26, 2007 in Helsinki.^[1]

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References

1. Daily Mail: The blonde Finn who melted the heart of Bank of England boss