After eight years as a star finance professor at one of London's top business schools, David Miles was ready to put his ideas to work in the real world. Hence his decision last month to leave Imperial College's Tanaka Business School to become Morgan Stanley's chief U.K. economist.

"Most academics spend their time writing learned papers, and if they're lucky, and with a time lag of 25 years, their work might affect some government thinking or policy," says Miles, 43. "The opportunity to use some of the economic thinking I've been doing in an environment like Morgan Stanley, where it could be applied, was very attractive."

Miles is likely to make his voice heard on housing issues, having analyzed the U.K. mortgage market for Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. He has also researched aging and macroeconomic policy -- a hot topic in the U.K. as pressures build in the pension system.

"The decision about which way to go with pensions will have a huge impact on the level of savings in the private sector, and that alone will have knock-on effects on financial markets," says Miles. "Economists who can think clearly about that can contribute a lot to the debate."

Landing Miles is the latest in a string of big hires for Morgan Stanley in London. Earlier this year the firm brought on Jeremy Heywood, Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief economic adviser, as a senior M&A banker. This summer it poached Merrill Lynch's seven-person corporate brokering team. Adding Miles is another poke in Merrill's eye: He had been an economic adviser to that firm for years.