Professor Jonathan Haskel has said he is “truly honoured” after being appointed an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

Prof Haskel, who is Jewish and a professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, will be one of nine people meeting eight times a year to decide the central bank’s monetary policy, such as whether to raise interest rates.

His three-year term begins on September 1 – he will continue teaching part-time at Imperial.

Last year, Prof Haskel shared the inaugural Indigo Prize for economics, worth £125,000, after designing a better way to measure national wealth than the existing Gross Domestic Product figure.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said he was “delighted that Professor Haskel is joining the MPC. I am confident that his expertise in productivity and innovation will further sharpen the Committee’s understanding of the British economy.”

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said he was “very much looking forward to working”, with Prof Haskel.

“His broad academic experience and the depth of his knowledge on productivity and innovation will be hugely valuable to the Committee,” Mr Carney added.

Prof Haskel said he was “truly honoured to be nominated to the MPC".

He said: “I look forward to contributing to the MPC’s vital role in maintaining the UK’s price stability and communicating its thinking.”

Last year Prof Haskel published Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy.

Together with his co-author, Stian Westlake, he wrote for the JC about how the Jewish emphasis on organisation and inspiration could help them make further headway in today’s fast-changing economy.

“One of the most valuable of future skills will be leadership,” he wrote.

“Youth movements have been teaching and instilling hadrachah for decades and many of our community started out as a youth movement madrich. The ancient sages showed great foresight in promoting reading 2,000 years ago: promoting leading now shows the same vision.”