Risk and Reality – decision making in an uncertain world

Having graduated with a degree in economics from Edinburgh University, John went on to lecture in the University of Oxford. His career took a change in direction when he was asked to join a group to review the structure of the British tax system. This group was established under the auspices of a newly established think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and was headed by James Meade, another economist who had achieved the ultimate distinction of a Nobel prize. John wrote (with Mervyn King, now Governor of the Bank of England) a more personal account of issues in taxation, The British Tax System which ran through five editions. John joined the Institute for Fiscal Studies as its first research director and subsequently became Director of the Institute. In 1986, he accepted a chair at the London Business School and, at the same time, he established a consulting company, London Economics. John has been a director of several investment companies, and was for nine years a director of Halifax plc. Other tasks have included membership of the task force which began the process of reviewing the Lloyds insurance market, acting as a director of the Investors Compensation Scheme, and being a member of the steering group for the government’s review of company law. In 1996, he returned to Oxford to help establish a new business school. of London . He became Professor of Management at the University of Oxford. And when, in 1997, he became the first Professor of Management to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In August 2002 he completed his most substantial book so far, The Truth about Markets, which was published in the UK and Europe in 2003 and as Culture and Prosperity in the United States in 2004. This book has now been translated into several other languages. John has continued to write several other books. In May 2007 he was invited to join the Scottish Government’s newly established Council of Economic Advisers.