…is Mark Carney.

That’s twice in a row that a governor has been an external candidate – although he has worked there before. I suspect that Bank employees who are thinking about the top job will start sending their CVs to the Department of Finance or perhaps the IMF. The days of appointing a governor from within the ranks appear to be over.

It’s also interesting that his background appears to be more in finance than in monetary economics. This probably reflects the problems the Bank will be facing in the next few months. Its monetary policy hasn’t changed since John Crow’s time, and there’s little obvious need to revisit the basic policy: inflation has been low and stable for 15 years. It’s time to focus more attention on financial markets.