IN NOVEMBER last year, Dr. Swati Dhingra delivered what might have seemed an unlikely rebuke to one of Britain's most venerated institutions. Speaking at the Bank of England (BoE) Watchers’ Conference, she challenged the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) claims about the difficulty of gathering reliable labour force data in the UK.
“I grew up in India. There are a billion people there. We managed to get the labour force survey answered," she said, her typically measured tone carrying an edge of frustration. “I don't find it particularly plausible that that's hard to do.”
This moment exemplifies what makes Dhingra, the first South Asian woman appointed to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), such a compelling force in British economic policy. She combines deep expertise with an outsider's perspective, challenging conventional wisdom with data-driven precision and lived experience.
As Britain wrestles with persistent inflation and economic uncertainty, Dhingra has emerged as the MPC's most consistent voice for a different approach. While central banks worldwide have aggressively raised interest rates to combat inflation, she has been one of the few to push back, warning that such moves risk deepening the cost-of-living crisis and stifling economic recovery.
“I think we should be easing policy more; most of the time gradual is better because it gives people certainty to plan ahead,” Dhingra told Bloomberg in December, advocating for more interest rate cuts. She argued that the current restrictive policy was adversely impacting living standards, suppressing business investment, and potentially hindering long-term productivity.
This stance reflects her long-held belief in the need for looser monetary policy. Dhingra joined the MPC in August 2022 and consistently voted for a slower pace of tightening than her MPC colleagues before starting to vote for rate cuts in February this year, six months before the majority backed a cut.
Her reasoning stems from a keen understanding of real-world impacts: tight monetary policy, she argues, disproportionately burdens lower-income households and small businesses – the very people who can least afford it.
Her perspective on economic hardship isn't merely academic. Born in 1980 in western Uttar Pradesh, India, Dhingra's family history is intertwined with one of the 20th century's
most significant economic dislocations – the 1947 partition of India. Her parents, who built a modest shawl business, taught her firsthand about economic resilience and adaptation.
Dhingra's academic journey led her to the University of Delhi, where she earned her undergraduate degree, followed by an MA from the Delhi School of Economics. She furthered her studies in the US, obtaining an MS and a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, later undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University.
Her postdoctoral work at Princeton and tenure at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) cemented her reputation as an expert in trade policy and globalisation. Her research has been published in leading academic journals, reinforcing her status as a leading thinker in her field.
Her research was awarded the ONS’s Research Excellence People’s Choice Award 2019, for the paper titled, ‘Trade and worker deskilling: Evidence from the Brexit vote’, which presented new evidence on international trade and worker outcomes. Dhingra has been a prominent critic of Brexit, warning of its potential economic drawbacks.
Recently, she cautioned that Britain faced limited options to carve out an independent trade policy in response to any tariffs imposed by US president Donald Trump.
“Large trade partners tend to have much more bargaining power than small trade partners, and that's something we have to face up to,” she said. “If the US is going to put up trade barriers and there's going to be retaliatory action from everyone else, I think it's a really important moment to ensure that ... it's an orderly fragmentation and not a disorderly fragmentation.”
Dhingra has been reappointed to the MPC in February for a second term and will continue to hold the post until August 2028.
Her influence extends beyond monetary policy. Through her work on the Economy 2030 Inquiry, a collaboration between the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE, she's helping shape Britain's economic future. She was previously served in the UK's Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and the LSE's Economic Diplomacy Commission.
She is a member of the Royal Economic Society Council, which supervises and advises on the Society’s activities, and a trustee of the Royal Mint Museum and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She is on the editorial board of the Review of Economic Studies and is an associate editor for the Journal of International Economics.
Her contributions to economic discourse are not confined to policy advocacy and academic research – she has actively engaged in public debates, offering nuanced perspectives on pressing economic issues.
But perhaps Dhingra's most significant impact lies in how she's changing the face of economic policymaking itself. In a field historically dominated by white men, she's demonstrating that diverse perspectives strengthen economic decision-making. Her willingness to challenge established institutions – whether on interest rates, labour market data, or Brexit's economic impact – shows how fresh viewpoints can enrich policy debates.
In an era of economic uncertainty, her commitment to using economics as a force for social good, combined with her data-driven approach and independent thinking, makes her one of Britain's most important economic voices.
