Biography

Tim Harford is a member of the Financial Times editorial board. His column, “The Undercover Economist”, which reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences, is published in the Financial Times and syndicated around the world. He is also the only economist in the world to run a problem page, “Dear Economist”, in which FT readers’ personal problems are answered tongue-in-cheek with the latest economic theory.

Tim’s first book, “The Undercover Economist” has sold one million copies worldwide in almost 30 languages. His second book, “The Logic of Life“, was published early in 2008 in English, and has also been widely translated, and his third book, “Dear Undercover Economist” is a collection of his “Dear Economist” columns.

He presented the BBC television series “Trust Me, I’m an Economist” and now presents the BBC radio series “More or Less”. He is a frequent contributor to other radio and TV programs, including the Colbert Report, Marketplace, Morning Edition, Today, and Newsnight. He has been published by the leading magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Esquire, Forbes, Wired, New York Magazine, the Guardian, the London Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Tim and the team from More or Less won the Royal Statistical Society’s 2010 award for statistical excellence in broadcast journalism and the 2010 Mensa Intelligence award. Tim won the 2006 Bastiat Prize for economic journalism.

Before becoming a writer, Tim worked for Shell, the World Bank and as a tutor at Oxford University, from where he earned an M.Phil in economics in 1998. He is a senior visiting fellow at Cass Business School, and he lives in London with his wife and two daughters.