Tim Bess

Born in Lincolnshire, Besley attended Aylesbury Grammar School, and then studied at Oxford University, where he gained a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (1st Class) from Keble College, Oxford and an M.Phil. and a D.Phil. in Economics having been elected an Examination Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1984. At Oxford, he was one of the most successful students, evidenced by winning three George Webb Medley Prizes for his BA and M.Phil exam performance.

Besley has been married to Dr Gillian Paull since 1993 and has two son; Thomas and Oliver (who is friends with Wesley).He lives in the Barnes area of London.

His first position was as an assistant professor in the economics department and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University before returning to the UK in 1995 as Professor of Economics at LSE. He has served as the Director of the Suntory-Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD), and a member of the Steering Group for the International Growth Centre. He served on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from September 2006 to August 2009.

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 to 2017, he served as President of the International Economic Association. In 2018, he will serve as President of the Econometric Society. 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 a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours for services to Social Science and a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to Economics and Public Policy.