Another hawk to replace Sentance

A SENIOR economist at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs who has forecast a string of interest rate rises is to join the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.

Ben Broadbent, who has worked for Goldman since 2000, will replace Andrew Sentance, currently the Bank's strongest advocate for a rate hike, on the nine-strong MPC in June.

Some economists said Broadbent appeared to share some of Sentance's views but warned it was difficult to predict how a new MPC member would behave once on board.

Simon Hayes, an economist at Barclays Capital, said: "From what we know of Mr Broadbent, although he may not be as hawkish as Mr Sentance, he seems likely to be towards that end of the MPC spectrum, and his appointment does not lead us to change our policy forecast."

Nomura economist Philip Rush added: "While he's probably nowhere near as hawkish as Sentance, he'll be on that end of the MPC."

In his role at Goldman, Broadbent - a scholar of Cambridge and Harvard - forecast a 0.25 per cent interest rate hike to 0.75 per cent in May, followed by repeated 0.25 per cent increases in each quarter until the end of 2012.

The Treasury said that, out of the 27 applications for the MPC post, only one was from a woman and added it would like to see a greater number of female applicants in the future. The committee has been all male since the departure of Kate Barker last year.