Wikipedia

Gerard Lyons

Gerard Patrick Lyons (born 31 March 1961)[1][2] is a British economist.

Gerard Lyons
Lyons at a Policy Exchange conference, September 2014
Born
Gerard Patrick Lyons

(1961-03-31) 31 March 1961 (age 63)
Marylebone, London, England[1]
NationalityBritish
Academic career
FieldPolitical economy
International economics
Financial economics
School or
tradition		New Keynesian economics
Alma materUniversity of Liverpool (BSc)
University of Warwick (MA)
Queen Mary, University of London (PhD)
Websitewww.drgerardlyons.com

Biography

edit

Gerard Lyons belongs to an immigrant Irish Catholic family from Kilburn, North West London.[3]

Lyons attended St Mary's Primary School in Kilburn and Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Holland Park, London. He studied at the University of Liverpool followed by a Masters in Economics at the University of Warwick. In 1985, he completed his PhD at Queen Mary, University of London.[4]

Financial sector career

edit

Lyons started his career as an economist at Chase Manhattan Bank in the Europe Area Office from 1985 to 1986.[4][5][6][7][8] From 1986 to 1989 he was the Chief UK Economist at Swiss Bank Corporation. From 1989 to 1999 he was Chief Economist and Executive Director at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank.[9] Then from 1999 to 2012, Lyons was the Chief Economist and Group Head of Global Research at Standard Chartered Bank,[10] where he was in charge of a division of about 180 staff.[11] In 2010 and 2011, Lyons' team at Standard Chartered was ranked as the top forecasting team globally by Bloomberg.[12][13][14][15] On leaving Standard Chartered, The Times wrote that Lyons "(had) become one of the most influential pundits on the global economy".[16]

Prior to this Lyons reinforced his own reputation as an accurate forecaster with being one of two British economists predicting in August 2008, a month before Lehman Brothers collapsed, a deep imminent recession.[17] He anticipated a GDP fall of 1.6% for the third quarter of 2008 when the consensus predicted a rise of 0.9%.[14] Other accurate contrarian calls include correctly predicting that the Lawson Boom would end in a bust, as well arguing for the economic benefits of leaving the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.[18] Regarding the latter, Lyons wrote in The Observer in 1992 that "[S]omething will have to give: either the government's exchange-rate commitment or the economy," and he has called the euro "probably the worst economic idea ever thought up by anyone anywhere at any time".[19]

Currently, Lyons is Chief Economic Strategist at Netwealth,[20] an independent non-executive director at the Bank of China,[citation needed] and a Senior Fellow at the think tank Policy Exchange.[21] Lyons also sits, since 2008, on the Advisory Board of the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment; and has been a member of the Advisory Board of Warwick Business School since 2014.[22]

Public sector career

edit

In 1999, Lyons was a member of the 'Commission on the £ Sterling', established by the Leader of the Opposition William Hague. He and Ruth Lea wrote up the Commission's findings.

He has testified to United States Congress and Senate about the rise of State Capitalism and Sovereign Wealth Funds.[23]

He was the Lead Advisor on Prime Minister Gordon Brown's first Business Council for Britain, 2007–08.[24]

He sat on Councils of the World Economic Forum between 2009 and 2014.[25]

On 11 December 2012, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced that Lyons was to join his team as his Chief Economic Adviser.[26][27] During his first term, Lyons had been a member of Johnson's informal panel of economic and business advisers, speaking at a number of events at City Hall on London's global position during the term of the previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone.[28] He began the role a month later in January 2013 and left in April 2016, at the conclusion of the Mayor's term. While at City Hall Lyons championed the London living wage, co-chaired, with Munira Mirza, the London Strategic Migration Partnership Panel, represented the Mayor on the Board of City UK and sat as a member of the GLA's Investment Performance Board[29] and gave testimony to the Commission's second report, in 2016.[30]

Because of his connection with Johnson and knowledge of emerging economies, he was considered for the 2019 appointment of Governor of the Bank of England.[3]

Lyons was described to have been then-prime minister Liz Truss's "favourite economist", and provided external advisor during her leadership bid although he did not have contact with her once she became prime minister.[31] He was initially a prominent supporter of the supply-side reforms in Truss's "mini-budget",[32] writing two days after its unveiling that it "will boost growth and everyone will benefit."[33] However, as reported in The Guardian[34] and Financial Times, Lyons co-authored a paper for Truss before she became prime minister which warned: “The markets are nervous about the UK and about policy options. If immediate economic policy announcements are handled badly then a market crash is possible."[35]

Books

edit
  • The Consolations of Economics[36][37]
  • Clean Brexit: How to Make a Success of Leaving the European Union (co-authored with the journalist Liam Halligan).[38]

EU Referendum

edit

Previously a vocal opponent of the UK joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism and Euro currency,[39] Lyons is an advocate of "Clean Brexit", and co-founded Economists for Brexit to provide the economic case for leaving.[40][41] He publicly criticised the use of the £350 million figure on the side of the Vote Leave bus,[42] and suggested that a net figure of £163 million a week should have been used.[43]

In April 2016, Lyons suggested that food would be suddenly cheaper after Brexit.[44]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  2. ^ "Lyons, Dr Gerard Patrick". Lyons, Dr Gerard Patrick, (Born 31 March 1961), Chief Economic Adviser to Mayor of London, since 2013. Who's Who. 2012. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U255877.
  3. ^ a b Elliott, Larry (11 August 2019). "And the next Bank of England governor will be …". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b "Gerard Lyons – Keynote Speaker Leading International Economist and Expert and Cofounder of 'Economists for Brexit'". londonspeakerbureau.com. Archived from the original on 4 November 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  5. ^ "What makes Boris Johnson's favourite economist tick?" Archived 15 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine,"https://amp.economist.com",Aug Archived 15 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine 1st 2019
  6. ^ "Agenda". LSEEMF. Archived from the original on 26 May 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2023.
  7. ^ Jeremy Warner "Boris favourite Gerard Lyons on the Bank of England after Brexit: 'We must close the pessimism gap'" Archived 13 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine,"https://www.telegraph.co.uk",8 Archived 3 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine August, 2019
  8. ^ Griffiths, Katharine. "Lyons to leave StanChart after 13 years". The Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  9. ^ "Gerard Lyons | HuffPost". www.huffingtonpost.co.uk.
  10. ^ "Gerard Lyons". Expert Keynote and Motivational Speakers | Chartwell Speakers. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  11. ^ "Boris Johnson's ex-adviser Gerard Lyons fails to make shortlist for Bank governor". Archived from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  12. ^ "Lyons as Carney Successor Could Mean Different BOE". Bloomberg. 25 July 2019. Archived from the original on 6 October 2019. Retrieved 12 April 2024 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  13. ^ Jill Ward, Olivia Konotey-Ahulu. "Lyons as Carney Successor Could Mean Different BOE" Archived 28 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine,"https://www.bloomberg.com",July Archived 10 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine 26, 2019
  14. ^ a b Blackhurst, Chris (24 October 2014). "Gerard Lyons interview: the key Boris adviser who likes to look on the". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  15. ^ "City Spy: Forget Reservoir Dogs - Standard Chartered economists are". Evening Standard. 10 April 2012. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  16. ^ Griffiths, Katherine. "Lyons to leave StanChart after 13 years". Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  17. ^ "Boris Johnson snaps up Lyons from Standard Chartered". Evening Standard. 11 December 2012. Archived from the original on 27 September 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  18. ^ [1] Archived 13 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine/
  19. ^ "What makes Boris Johnson's favourite economist tick?". The Economist. August 2019. Archived from the original on 16 November 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  20. ^ "Expert Wealth Management Powered by Cutting-Edge Technology | Netwealth". Archived from the original on 20 June 2020. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
  21. ^ "Gerard Lyons". Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  22. ^ "The Board | Our People - All Staff Directory | Warwick Business School". Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  23. ^ "The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Impacts on U.S. Foreign Policy and Economic Interests". 21 May 2008. Archived from the original on 25 September 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  24. ^ "Top economist says Bank of England's failure to tackle inflation quickly will worsen cost-of-living crisis". 6 February 2022. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  25. ^ Financial development report Archived 12 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine nyu.edu
  26. ^ Fleming, Sam (11 December 2012). "Boris Johnson hires City veteran Gerard Lyons to tackle emerging dilemma". The Times. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  27. ^ "Top City economist appointed to direct Mayor's economic strategy". London City Hall. 11 December 2012. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  28. ^ Goodway, Nick (10 December 2012). "Lyons moves from City to City Hall to advise Boris". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  29. ^ Raising the capital (PDF) (Report). London Finance Commission. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  30. ^ Devolution: a capital idea (PDF) (Report). London Finance Commission. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 January 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  31. ^ Osborne, Osborne (29 September 2022). "Liz Truss's 'favourite' economist says chancellor 'took his eye off ball' and 'overstepped the mark' with mini-budget". Sky News. Retrieved 17 July 2024.
  32. ^ Hall, Rachel (17 October 2022). "Trussonomics: Who Were Doomed Mini-Budget's Biggest Cheerleaders?". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
  33. ^ Lyons, Gerard (25 September 2022). "Mini-budget WILL boost growth and everyone will benefit - GERARD LYONS". The Express. Retrieved 17 July 2024.
  34. ^ "Liz Truss ignored economists' stark warnings over mini-budget". The Guardian. 21 October 2022. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  35. ^ https://www.ft.com/content/736a695d-61f6-4e84-a567-fb92ed2a3dca [bare URL]
  36. ^ Lyons, Gerard (14 June 2014). "Gerard Lyons: the whole world is about to grow". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  37. ^ Lyons, Gerard (15 June 2014). "Gerard Lyons: 10 rules for the new global economy". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  38. ^ "The best of a clutch of recent books on Brexit—from both sides". The Economist. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  39. ^ "Gerard Lyons and the Boris vision thing". TheGuardian.com. 12 December 2012. Archived from the original on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
  40. ^ "Gerard Lyons, Author at BrexitCentral". BrexitCentral. Archived from the original on 4 November 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  41. ^ Corner, Speakers. "Gerard Lyons - Business Speakers | Speakers Corner". www.speakerscorner.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 November 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  42. ^ PoliticsHome.com (30 May 2016). "Brexit economists reject £350m Vote Leave claim". PoliticsHome.com. Archived from the original on 31 May 2016. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  43. ^ "'Clumsy institutions', says Lyons". Production Engineer. 64 (7): 7. 1985. doi:10.1049/tpe.1985.0159. ISSN 0032-9851.
  44. ^ "Gerard Lyons: We will prosper from Brexit". 12 April 2016. Archived from the original on 30 August 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
edit
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gerard Lyons.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerard_Lyons&oldid=1246542688"