By David Milliken and William James
LONDON (Reuters) - The Chancellor named former White House adviser Kristin Forbes as a member of the Bank of England's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, continuing his trend of looking abroad for top BoE officials.
Forbes, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the youngest ever person appointed to the White House's Council of Economic Advisors, where she served President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2005.
She fills the vacancy left after finance minister George Osborne promoted an external member of the committee, Ben Broadbent, to be the BoE's deputy governor for monetary policy once incumbent Charlie Bean retires next month.
Osborne has looked abroad for other senior BoE appointments, poaching Governor Mark Carney from the Bank of Canada and hiring International Monetary Fund official Nemat Shafik as a deputy governor.
He also appointed Britain's European Union ambassador, Jon Cunliffe, as a deputy governor.
"Dr Kristin Forbes is an economist of outstanding ability with real practical experience of policy making," Osborne said in a statement.
Forbes will start on July 1 and serve a three-year term. With Shafik, the appointment means the nine-member MPC will have two women on it for the first time in around a decade.
As well as the White House and academia, Forbes has also worked for the World Bank, Morgan Stanley and the U.S. Treasury.
Her academic research has focused on financial crises, macroprudential regulation and capital flows.
Britain's finance ministry said 34 people, including 10 women, applied for the MPC role, which was advertised in April.
Carney said in a statement that he welcomed Forbes's appointment.
(Reporting by David Milliken and William James; editing by William Schomberg/Jeremy Gaunt)