Sir Richard Stone Annual Lecture 2016-2017
Professor Timothy Besley presented the 8th Sir Richard Stone Annual Lecture on
“Institutions, Organizations and Cultural Evolution”
Economic approaches to understanding long-run prosperity now place emphasis on the role of institutions and organizations in shaping how resources are allocated. The lecture will explore how models of cultural evolution can be useful in understanding the dynamics of institutions and organizations. The ideas developed offer a fresh perspective on the political economy of democratic institutions as well as the interplay between policies and cultural change.
The Lecture took place in the Faculty of Law, room LG17 (The David Williams Building, 10 West Road, Cambridge) on Wednesday the 23th of November, 2016, 5.00-6.30pm.
Timothy Besley is School Professor of Economics and Political Science and W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Tim has made landmark contributions to development economics, public economics and political economics and his research has appeared in all the leading academic journals. In 2005, the European Economics Association honoured him with the Yrjö Jahnsson Award in recognition of the very significant contribution he has made to economics in Europe and he was subsequently awarded the John von Neumann Award in 2010. His book (joint with Torsten Persson), Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011) has been instrumental in establishing a research programme on state capacity and institutions. Tim's research has a strong policy focus and from September 2006 to August 2009, he served as an external member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee and since 2015 he has been a member of the UK's National Infrastructure Commission. He was one of the lead authors of the very influential Mirrlees Review in 2011.
Tim is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the British Academy, and the European Economic Association. He is also a foreign honorary member of the American Economic Association and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the current President of the International Economic Association and served as the President of the European Economic Association in 2010. In 2018, he will serve as the President of the Econometric Society. He is a past co-editor of the American Economic Review and is presently editor of Economica. He has delivered numerous invited lectures, including the Yrjö Jahnsson Lectures (Helsinki, 2010), Harris Lecture (Harvard 2012), and the Hicks Lecture (Oxford, 2015).