Professor Sir Tim Besley is School Professor of Economics and Political Science and W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE. He is also a member of the National Infrastructure Commission. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and British Academy and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His main research interests are in political economy and development.

He is Director of the Hayek Program, the Programme for Cohesive Capitalism, and the Huth Initiative for a New Political Economy at the LSE, all of which are based in STICERD at LSE.