Mar Gudmundsson

Prior to becoming Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, Gudmundsson served from 2004 to 2009 as Deputy Head of the Monetary and Economics Department and member of Senior Management of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), during which time he also served on the Council of Management of SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum. From 1994 to 2004 he was Chief Economist and Director of the Economics Department of the Central Bank of Iceland and from 1991, Manager of the Department. Between 1988 and 1991 he was Economic adviser to the Minister of Finance of Iceland. Prior to that he was an economist in the Economics Department of the Central Bank, from 1980. Other responsibilities include being Chairman of a committee formulating energy policy for the City of Reykjavik, 2002–04. A member of the Board of Directors of Icelandic Alloys Ltd. (a ferro-silicon company owned jointly by the Icelandic state, Elkem a/s in Norway, the Sumitomo Corporation in Japan and Icelandic investors), 2000–03. IMF/MAE adviser to the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, 1998–99. A member of a government appointed committee revising the Central Bank legislation, 1991–92. Chairman of the Board Directors of "Söfnunarsjóður lífeyrisréttinda" (one of the biggest pension funds in Iceland), 1989–91.

Ph.D. studies in economics at University of Cambridge, England in 1987-89. M.Phil. degree in economics, University of Cambridge, 1981. B.A.(honours) degree in economics, University of Essex, England, 1979. Studied economics and mathematics during the winter 1976–77 at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Gudmundsson is considered a leading proponent of the Central Bank's monetary policy strategy of an inflation target and floating exchange rates adopted in March 2001. Since July 2009, he has been influential in charting a course for the Icelandic economy out of the present economic and financial crisis.

• "Fault lines in Cross-border Banking: Lessons from the Icelandic case," with Thorsteinn Thorgeirsson, SUERF Studies 2010/5.[1]
• "Financial globalisation: key trends and implications for the transmission mechanism of monetary policy," BIS Papers No 39, April 2008, http://www.bis.org/
• "Near-term exchange rate flexibility in East Asia: a precursor to regional monetary union?" in Pacific Economic Review, 13: 1 (2008), pp 62–82. https://web.archive.org/web/20110610095234/https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/events/ccbs_cew2007/paper_4Gudmundsson.pdf
• "Financial globalisation and asset price dynamics in small and financially open economies," a background note for the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee/University of Iceland Institute of Economic Studies Reykjavík Roundtable “Global Financial Markets and International Financial Stability”, Reykjavik, Iceland, 19–21 October 2006, http://www.rbwf.org/
• "The choice and design of exchange rate regimes," in “Central Banks and the Challenge of Development”, proceedings of conference held at the BIS in Basel, March 2006 and published May 2006, pp 105–122, http://www.bis.org/
• "Keynes’s General Theory and Current Views: Methodology, Institutions and Policies," University of Iceland, 2004, pp 79–97.
• "Keynes and the modern theory of monetary policy," with Asgeir Danielsson in Gudmundur Magnússon and Jesper Jespersen (eds)
• "Interaction of monetary and financial stability in a small open economy - the case of Iceland," with Haukur Benediktsson Arnór Sighvatsson and Gylfi Zoega presented at the SUERF conference in Iceland on 3–4 June 2004
• "How does being small affect the choice of an exchange rate regime?" Paper prepared for the International Atlantic Economic Society conference in Vienna 12–16 March 2003.
• "The strengthening of the exchange rate and economic policy challenges," Monetary Bulletin 2003/3, www.sedlabanki.is/
• "The Icelandic pension system," In International Pension Funds and their Advisors 2002, Aspire, 2002.
• "Exchange rate arrangements of microstates: general assessment and the case of Iceland," paper presented at the Conference “Iceland and the World Economy: Lessons for Small Countries in the Era of Globalisation”, organised by the Center for International Development at Harvard University, May 2002.
• "Optimal exchange rate policy: the case of Iceland," with Arnór Sighvatsson and Thórarinn G. Pétursson, in Bank of Norway Working Papers 2001/15.
• "Iceland’s experience of financial instability in recent decades," with Tryggvi Björn Davidsson, in Gudmundsson, Herbertson and Zoega (Eds.) Macroeconomic Policy: Iceland in an Era of Global Integration, Papers and Proceedings of an Anniversary Conference of the Institute of Economics of the University of Iceland held in Reykjavík in May 1999.
• "Optimal exchange rate policy: the case of Iceland," with Thórarinn G. Pétursson and Arnór Sighvatsson, in Gudmundsson, Herbertson and Zoega (Eds.) Macroeconomic Policy: Iceland in an Era of Global Integration, Papers and Proceedings of an Anniversary Conference of the Institute of Economics of the University of Iceland held in Reykjavík in May 1999.