Nicholas Barr
Nicholas Barr, FRSA, FREcon is Professor of Public Economics at the London School of Economics, the author of numerous articles, and author or editor of over twenty books, including The Economics of the Welfare State (6th edition, 2020), Financing Higher Education: Answers from the UK, 2005 (with Iain Crawford), and Pension Reform: A Short Guide, 2010 (with Peter Diamond). The heart of his work is an exploration of how market failures both explain and justify the existence of welfare states.
Alongside academic writing is wide-ranging policy work, including spells at the World Bank and IMF, and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils on Demographic Shifts and on Ageing Society. He has advised governments in the post-communist countries, and in the UK, Australia, Chile, China, Hungary, New Zealand and South Africa. He was a member of a small group advising the government of China on pension reform, presenting their findings to the Premier in 2004. In Chile he was a member of the Bravo Commission.
