The RES Council supervises and advises on the Society’s activities. It meets twice-yearly and consists of the President, President-elect, Immediate Past President, Life Vice Presidents, Honorary Treasurer, Chair of Trustees and thirty elected councillors (three of whom are appointed to the Trustee Board).
Chair of Trustees and Co-opted Trustee
Anton has been Principal and Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Economics at the University of Glasgow since 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was Chair of the Russell Group of Universities in 2017-20. He currently chairs the Economic Commission for the Glasgow Region City Deal. He was awarded the honour of Commendatore of the Republic of Italy in 2008, and a Knighthood in 2017.
President
Imran Rasul OBE is a Professor of Economics at University College London, Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Co-Director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality and the Economy. In these roles he has supported policy engagement among economists, advised early career researchers, and brought together research and education on the study of wealth concentration and economic inequality. He has served as a Council Member and Trustee of the Royal Economic Society (RES) from 2018-2023 and Chaired the RES Publications Committee from 2018-21.
President-Elect
Tony Venables CBE is a senior research fellow at Oxford University. He is a fellow of the British Academy the Econometric Society and the Regional Science Association and a fellow and trustee of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He has held professorships at Manchester, Oxford, the LSE, and Southampton and served as chief economist in the UK Department for International Development. He has published extensively in international trade, spatial economics, natural resources, and economic development. Books include The spatial economy; cities, regions and international trade with M. Fujita and P. Krugman, and Multinationals in the World Economy with G. Barba Navaretti.
Honorary Treasurer
Kate is Chief Economist at the Financial Conduct Authority, where she heads a division responsible for providing rigorous economic thinking, research, analysis, and advice to help the FCA deliver on its strategic objective of making financial services markets work well. Kate has nearly 20 years’ experience as an economist in roles spanning the public and private sector. Kate has undertaken several senior roles in government. She has published in The Economic Journal.
Immediate Past-President
Sir Christopher Antoniou Pissarides FBA is a Cypriot economist. He is the School Professor of Economics & Political Science and Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and Professor of European Studies at the University of Cyprus. His research focuses on topics of macroeconomics, notably labour, economic growth, and economic policy. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, jointly with Peter A. Diamond and Dale Mortensen, for the analysis of markets with theory of search frictions.
Council member (until 2026)
Jonathan Athow graduated with a master’s degree in economics from the University of East Anglia. He worked for 14 years in HM Treasury before becoming Chief Economist at HM Revenue and Customs. Between 2015 and 2021, he was Deputy National Statistician for Economic Statistics at the Office for National Statistics. Jonathan has since returned to HM Revenue and Customs and is Director General for Customer Strategy and Tax Design.
Council member (until 2026) and Honorary Treasurer
Kate is Chief Economist at the Financial Conduct Authority, where she heads a division responsible for providing rigorous economic thinking, research, analysis, and advice to help the FCA deliver on its strategic objective of making financial services markets work well. Kate has nearly 20 years’ experience as an economist in roles spanning the public and private sector. Kate has undertaken several senior roles in government. She has published in The Economic Journal.
Council member (until 2026)
Monica Costa-Dias is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol and Deputy Research Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She holds a PhD in Economics from UCL and is Visiting Professor at the University of Porto, a Council Member of the European Economic Association (2021-25), a Research Fellow at IZA, CEPR and the HCEO, and the editor of Fiscal Studies. She is a labour economist.
Council member (until 2026)
Council member (until 2026) and Trustee
Swati Dhingra is Associate Professor in Economics at LSE, and associate of the Centre for Economic Performance. She is currently a member of the UK’s Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and LSE’s Economic Diplomacy Commission. She is Research Fellow at CEPR, and on the editorial boards of Journal of International Economics and Review of Economic Studies. Her research is in international economics and industrial policy. She has published in leading academic journals.
Council member (until 2027)
Jo Blanden is Reader in Economics at the University of Surrey where she has worked since completing her PhD in Economics at UCL in 2005. She is a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. Her research focuses on intergenerational mobility and related issues in the Economics of Education, including Early Years and the recent disruptions to education from the pandemic. She regularly provides advice to Government and she is a member of the ESRC peer review college.
Council member (until 2027)
Anita Charlesworth is Director of Research and the REAL Centre at the Health Foundation. She is Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham, Chair of the Office of Health Economics and specialist adviser to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee. She has a MSc in health economics and BA in social science. She has worked in government (an economist in DHSC/Director of Public spending in HM Treasury), pharmaceutical industry and the third sector.
Council member (until 2027)
Sriya Iyer is Professor of Economics and Social Science at the University of Cambridge; Fellow, St Catharine’s College and Deputy Director, The Keynes Fund. Her research encompasses development, economics of religion, demography and health. She read for economics degrees in Delhi, India and Cambridge, UK, and has taught at Cambridge for twenty years. She is a Research Fellow of CEPR; Pew Research Centre’s India Advisory Board; Deputy Programme Chair, RES Conference 2020; and serves on the editorial boards of three journals. Her recent books are on The Economics of Religion in India (Harvard) and Advances in the Economics of Religion (IEA, Palgrave).
Council member (until 2027), Trustee and Elections Officer
Melanie Jones is a Professor of Economics at Cardiff Business School. Her research interest is empirical labour economics, and she has worked on a range of policy relevant issues, including for the Low Pay Commission and the Office of Manpower Economics. She is a former Associate of The Economics Network, and is currently an associate editor at the British Journal of Industrial Relations and a member of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration and ESRC Grant Assessment Panel C.
Council member (until 2027)
Ben Lockwood is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. He has held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Exeter. His research is mainly in public economics and political economy and has been published in journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, and Review of Economics and Statistics. He has held editorial positions at Review of Economic Studies, & Economic Journal.
Council member (until 2027)
Anna Vignoles is Director of the Leverhulme Trust: one of the largest research funders in the UK. An education economist and previously a Professor at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the relationship between educational achievement and social mobility and the role played by skills in the economy. She has advised numerous government departments, including the Department for Education, of Business, Innovation and Skills, and HM Treasury.
Council member (until 2028)
Arun Advani is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. He is also affiliated with the IFS, LSE International Inequalities Institute, CESifo, IZA, and the World Inequality Lab. He studies issues of tax compliance and tax design, with a particular focus on those with high incomes or wealth; and issues of education and skills development in the labour market. Together with Sarah Smith, he co-founded and co-chairs Discover Economics, a campaign to both increase access to economics, and increase the diversity of people who study and work in economics. At the RES, Arun was a member of the Schools sub-committee, and is on the DE Grants panel.
Council member (until 2028)
Parama Chaudhury is a Professor at UCL and has experience in UCL’s BAME awarding gap project, helping a diverse range of colleagues to develop, use and disseminate good practice in economics education and widening participation initiatives, to further the RES’s work in this area. This builds on her work to date with the RES’ Education and Training Committee. She is also the Founding Director of CTaLE, and sits on the panel for the CORE Project’s Learning Committee.
Council member (until 2028) and Trustee
David Jaeger is Professor of Economics at the University of St Andrews. His research, primarily focusing on labor economics, conflict, and applied econometrics, has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of the American Statistical Association, among others. He is the Editor of the Scottish Journal of Political Economy. David is a Research Fellow at IZA and CEPR and, prior to moving to St Andrews, was a Research Associate at the NBER.
Council member (until 2028)
Almudena Sevilla is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at LSE and a recipient of an ERC grant. Her research focuses on the areas of gender economics and human capital and is published in top economics journals. She has held positions at leading institutions such as University College London, the University of Oxford, and the US Congress. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 2004. Almudena is president-elect of the Society of the Economics of the Household, and Chair of the RES UK-Women in Economics Network (UK-WEN).
Council member (until 2028)
Misa Tanaka is Head of Research at the Bank of England and is responsible for the Bank’s research strategy. She holds a D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford and has several academic publications on financial regulation and the impact of climate change on central banks. She is a member of both the RES’s Women’s Committee and the Steering Group of the UK Women in Economics. She has previously served on the Research Accreditation Panel of the UK Statistics Authority.
Council member (until 2028)
Stephanie Von Hinke is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. Her research builds on the biomedical as well as economic and social sciences. She investigates the importance of parental investments, early life environments, genetics, and government policy in explaining individuals’ health and economic outcomes over the life course. She currently holds an ERC Starting Grant, examining the importance of the nature-nurture interplay in shaping individuals’ life chances. She is joint PI on an EU-funded Doctoral Network aiming to incorporate molecular genetic data into the social sciences.
Council member (until 2029)
Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. She is a labour economist with research expertise relating to gender, health and political representation. She currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant on the economics of violence against women. She leads the families stream of the ESRC research centre MiSoC at Essex and she leads the mental health and wellbeing stream of CAGE at Warwick. Through 2015-2021, Sonia was leading the health rights stream on an ESRC grant to the Human Rights Centre at Essex. Sonia is a Research Fellow at the IFS and CEPR, Fellow of the International Economic Association and the Academy of Social Sciences, and an Associate Editor of the Economic Journal.
Council member (until 2029)
Council member (until 2029)
Hamish Low is the James Meade Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford. He is a professorial fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and a research fellow at the IFS and at CEPR. He is also a member of the Methods Advisory Group at the Department of Work and Pensions. His research analyses what sort of risks individuals and families face over their lifetimes, and the extent that self-insurance and government social insurance mitigates these risks. Hamish has worked with Sarah Smith on the financial implications of the REF rules and the decline in funding for economic research in the UK.
Council member (until 2029)
Julia Darby, a Professor of Economics at the University of Strathclyde, is a macroeconomist who focuses on labour market issues and fiscal policy. She’s previously worked at the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling and at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. As her department’s Director of Postgraduate Research, she recently received recognition for the exceptional support she provided to build students’ sense of community during the Covid pandemic. She is actively involved with the Scottish Graduate School in Social Sciences (an ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership), contributing to shaping student culture and support activity and as a pathway reviewer.
Council member (until 2029)
Maria Psyllou is a Senior Teaching Fellow of Economics and Public Policy at Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the economics of education. She leads the ‘Inspire’ Initiative at the RES UK WEN dedicated to inspiring young women in economics and empowering early career women economists. She is a mentor at the Women in Economics Initiative (WiE). Maria is co-founder and co-lead of the Birmingham Economics Education Seminars (BEES) with Tim Burnett and Wenyu Zang, an initiative developing cross-institutional economics of education research. A Discover Economics Academic Champion, she leads numerous school outreach initiatives, targeting young women and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Council member (until 2029)
Katy Peters is Chief Economist at HM Revenue and Customs, using economics to enable better decision making and supporting numerous UK Budgets. She has provided advice on a wide range of issues including economic growth, the environment and housing. Katy has extensive experience of applied economics, having worked in the Department of Health, the Treasury, investment banking and the Bank of England. She uses large data sets and works with other professions, especially statistics and operational research, to raise standards in economics. She also leads a large community of economists, strengthening alternative routes into the economics profession.
Council member (until 2030)
Erin Hengel is an applied theoretical and empirical microeconomist and a lecturer in Economics at Brunel University of London. Her research focuses on labour economics and gender with a particular emphasis on better understanding the under-representation of women in academia, science and innovative sectors. Erin has been a member of the Royal Economic Society’s Women’s Committee since 2020, co-leads its sub-committee on Monitoring the Status of Women in Economics and co-authored its 2021 and 2023 reports surveying the status of women in economics in the UK.
Council member (until 2030)
Richard Hughes has been Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) since 2020. Prior to that, he was Director of Fiscal Policy and Acting Chief Economist at HM Treasury, a Division Chief in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund, a Research Associate at the Resolution Foundation, an Advisor to the French Government, and a Visiting Lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris and the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.
Council member (until 2030)
Council member (until 2030)
Climent Quintana-Domeque is a Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter. He earned his PhD in Economics from Princeton University and has taught at Universitat d’Alacant and the University of Oxford. He is Subject Lead of Applied Microeconomics at Exeter, and his research examines diverse topics, from the effects of public infrastructure on the lives of the poor to the socioeconomic determinants of health. He serves as editor of the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and contributes to global research networks like IZA. In 2024, he received the University of Exeter Supervisor of the Year Award.
Council member (until 2030)
Council member (until 2030)
