Dr Holger Schmieding is Managing Director and Head of European Economics at Bank of America in London. Before joining Bank of America in 2002, he worked as Senior Strategist and Chief Economist for Continental Europe at Merrill Lynch in Frankfurt (1994-1997) and London (1998-2001), as Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC (1993) and as Assistant to the President and Head of the Research Group on Transformation Countries at the Kiel Institute of World Economics (1986-1992) in Kiel, Germany. Holger Schmieding has been rated among the top three European economists in various financial market surveys. In 2007, the Financial Times Deutschland placed him as # 1 among 50 forecasters for the proven accuracy of his German forecasts over the last six years. He holds a doctorate in economics from Kiel University, having studied economics at the University of Munich (1978-80), the London School of Economics (1980-81) and the University of Kiel (1981-1984). He has published three books and a number of articles about German economic history, European economic integration and the transformation process of post-social economies in Europe. He writes regular columns for German FAZ, Newsweek International and the Financial Times.