Contributor : Profile

Timothy Besley is School Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics. He served on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee between 2006 and 2009 and is a member of the UK Government's National Infrastructure Commission. He previously taught at Princeton University, and is a Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research. His work focuses mainly on issues in development economics, public economics and political economy.

He has published widely on a variety of topics, mainly with a policy focus. He has been a Co-Editor of the American Economic Review, and Editor of the Economic Journal. He currently serves on the editorial boards of numerous other professional journals. His professional honours include being a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a Foreign Honourary Member of the American Economic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he served as President of the European Economic Association. In 2005, he won the prestigious biannual Yrjö Jahnsson Award for his research. He was educated at Oxford University (B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, 1st; M.Phil. and a D.Phil. in Economics) where he became a Prize Fellow of All Souls College.