Tim Besley

For the Australian engineer, businessman and public servant, see Tim Besley (public servant).

Tim Besley
Born	(1961-09-14) 14 September 1961 Kesteven, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Academic career
Field	Political economics
Institution	London School of Economics, International Growth Centre
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Influences	James Mirrlees James M. Buchanan
Contributions	Citizen-candidate model
Awards	Yrjö Jahnsson Award (2005) John von Neumann Award (2010)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Timothy John Besley, CBE, FBA, served on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from September 2006 to August 2009 and is School Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics, Director of the Suntory-Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD), and serves on the Steering Group for the International Growth Centre.

He attended Aylesbury Grammar School. He then studied at Oxford University, where he gained a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1st Class) and an M.Phil. and a D.Phil. in Economics. At Oxford, he was one of the most successful students, evidenced by winning three George-Webb Medley Prizes for his BA and M.Phil research thesis.

His career began as a prize fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He then served as an assistant Professor at Princeton University before returning to the UK in 1995.

He is also a research fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a member of the Institutions, Organizations and Growth Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

His research interests are focused on aspects of economic policy formation in developed and emerging market economies. He is one of the leading economists involved in restoring the study of political economy to prominence in mainstream economics.

He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and is a foreign honorary member of the American Economic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a past co-editor of American Economic Review—the first person to serve in this position not based at a US university. He is the 2010 president of the European Economic Association. From 2014-2017, he will serve as the President of the International Economic Association. In 2005, he won the Yrjö Jahnsson Award for European economics and he was awarded the 2010 John von Neumann Award by the Rajk László College for Advanced Studies at Corvinus University of Budapest. Besley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

He is married to Gillian Paull and has two sons called Thomas and Oliver. He lives in the Barnes area of London.

Works

• Principled agents?: the political economy of good government, Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-19-927150-4
• Delivering on the promise of pro-poor growth: insights and lessons from country experiences, Editors Timothy Besley, Louise Cord, World Bank Publications, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8213-6515-1