Was the Economic Crisis Unexpected?

CES visitor Gylfi Zoega is an Icelandic economist who has gained prominence as an academic and active contributor to the economic policy debate in Iceland, especially during the Icelandic financial crisis of 2008–10. Mr Zoega has offered an assessment of monetary policy during the upswing and reforms going forward. In addition to numerous basic reforms, his main conclusion is that the Central Bank should be granted macroprudential instruments to support the goal of price stability. Mr Zoega appeared in the film Inside Job, which uses the Icelandic financial crisis as a lead-in to its focus, the 2008 economic crisis in the United States and its origins.

Mr Zoega received his PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1993 and an M Phil in 1991. Earlier he received an MA from the same university and a BA in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He specialises in macroeconomics and labour economics and has written numerous articles on the subject, including several co-authored with Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps.

Gylfi Zoega is currently Professor for Economics at Birkbeck College in London and previously taught at the University of Iceland and Columbia University. He is a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Iceland.