Sir Richard William Blundell CBE FBA (born 1 May 1952,

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on t ...

) is a British

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and econometrician. Blundell is the

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...

Professor of

Political Economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

at the Department of Economics of

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

and the Director of the

ESRC The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides fund ...

Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is also Associate Faculty Member, TSE, Toulouse. He was the Research Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies between 1986 and 2016. He is a Fellow of the

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...

(1991), Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...

(1996), Honorary Member of the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...

(2001), Honorary Member

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

(2002) and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (2003). Blundell has received honorary doctorates from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland in 2003; the

University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Academy of Science ...

in 2011; the Norwegian School of Economics NHH, Bergen in 2011; the Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland in 2016; the University of Bristol in 2017 and the University of Venice Ca Foscari in 2018. He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to economics and social science.

Career

Blundell received his B.Sc. in economics with statistics from

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

in 1973 before he graduated with a master's degree in econometrics and mathematical economics from the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

in 1975. He held a position as

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in Econometrics at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

from 1975 to 1984. He was appointed Professor of Economics at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1984 and Research Director of the IFS in 1986, before establishing the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Fiscal Policy at IFS in 1991. He was

Visiting Professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

of Economics at UBC in 1980, at MIT in 1993, at Berkeley in 2000 and at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 2017. He was co-editor of ''

Econometrica ''Econometrica'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles in many areas of economics, especially econometrics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Econometric Society. The current editor-in-chief is ...

'' from 1997 to 2001 and co-editor of the '' Journal of Econometrics'' from 1992 to 1997. He currently edit
Microeconomic Insights
In 2004 Blundell became president of the

European Economic Association The European Economic Association (EEA) is a professional academic body which links European economists. It was founded in the mid-1980s. Its first annual congress was in 1986 in Vienna and its first president was Jacques Drèze. The current pres ...

, in 2006, president of the

in 2010, president of The Society of Labor Economics and served as president of the Royal Economic Society (2010–2012).

Awards

In 1995, Blundell received the

Yrjö Jahnsson Award Yrjö, a masculine Finnish given name that is the equivalent of George, may refer to: * Yrjö von Grönhagen, (1911–2003), Finnish anthropologist * Yrjö Jylhä, (1903–1956), Finnish poet * Yrjö Kilpinen (1892–1959), Finnish co ...

, given by the

every two years to the best young economist in Europe, for his work in microeconometrics and the analysis of labour supply, welfare reform and consumer behaviour. In 2000 he was awarded the

Frisch Medal The Frisch Medal is an award in economics given by the Econometric Society. It is awarded every two years for empirical or theoretical applied research published in '' Econometrica'' during the previous five years. The award was named in honor of ...

, awarded every two years for empirical or theoretical applied research published in ''

'' during the previous five years. In 2008 he was recipient of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize 2008 given by the Toulouse School of Economics to an international high level economist whose research combines both the theoretical and applied aspects of economics. He was the 2010 Distinguished Center for Economic Studies Fellow, an annual prize given by the CES of the

Ludwig Maximilian University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

of Munich to an outstanding economist who has greatly contributed to the understanding of economic policy problems. In 2012 he was recipient of the

IZA Prize in Labor Economics The Institute for the Study of Labor awards a prize each year (from 2016 on every two years in turn with the IZA Young Labor Economist Award) for outstanding academic achievement in the field of labor economics. The IZA Prize in Labor Economics has ...

awarded by IZA for outstanding academic achievements in the field of labor economics. In 2014, Blundell received, with David Card, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management for "their contributions to empirical microeconomics," in the words of the jury's citation. "Motivated by important empirical questions, they developed and estimated appropriate econometric models, making significant methodological contributions in the process. Both are known for their attention to institutional detail, careful and innovative research design, rigorous application of econometric tools, and dispassionate reporting of results." In 2016 Blundell received the

Nemmers Prize in Economics The Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics is awarded biennially from Northwestern University. It was initially endowed along with a companion prize, the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics. Both are part a $14 million donation from the Ne ...

for "his important contributions to labor economics, public finance and applied econometrics". He was elected a foreign associate of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in April 2019. In 2020 he was awarded the Jacob Mincer Prize for lifetime contributions to the field of Labor Economics.

Publications

He has published six books and many articles on

econometrics Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. ...

microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...

, consumer behaviour,

public economics Public economics ''(or economics of the public sector)'' is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve ...

and labour economics. Among his six books, ''Labor Supply and Taxation'' is Blundell's most distinguished book, in which he presents research on the behavior of individuals on the labor market respond to social policy influence and taxation, and on the modern labor markets and public policy reforms.

Personal life

His brother is the biochemist Tom Blundell.

References

External links

Debrett's People of TodayUCL webpageIFS website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blundell, Richard 1952 births Living people Academics of University College London Alumni of the University of Bristol 20th-century British economists 21st-century British economists Labor economists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Econometricians Presidents of the Econometric Society Fellows of the British Academy Knights Bachelor People from Shoreham-by-Sea Fellows of the Econometric Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Alumni of the London School of Economics Education economists Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the European Economic Association