BofA Adds Economist, Equities Head

Bank of America (BAC Quote) said Monday it has hired two prominent Wall Street names from competing banks to lead its North America economics and U.S. equity strategy teams.

Ethan Harris will join BofA as head of North America economics from Barclays (BCS Quote), where he holds the position of chief U.S. Economist, and David Bianco will become BofA's head of U.S. equity strategy, leaving UBS (UBS Quote), where he holds a similar role.

Harris, who served in the same capacity at Lehman Brothers since 2003 and maintained that role when Barclays acquired Lehman assets last year, will be charged with overseeing the North America economic outlook at BofA, as well as calls on the Federal Reserve's interest rate decisions.

He holds an assortment of awards and accolades for his work, and served at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for nine years before joining Lehman in 1996. He was also an international economist at JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) and authored the book Ben Bernanke's Fed: The Federal Reserve After Greenspan.

Bianco, in his new role at BofA, will forecast the outlook for U.S. stocks and oversee allocation recommendations. He joined UBS in 2002 and previously worked at Deutsche Bank (DB Quote) as chief U.S. quantitative strategist and Credit Suisse (CS Quote) as a senior equity analyst. He has also served on the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Advisory Council since 2005.

BofA has also named Michael Hartnett head of its research investment committee and global equity strategy. In those roles, Hartnett will work to develop an allocation plan for investments around the world.