Biography

Sir Tony Atkinson was Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He was previously Warden of the College. He was Fellow of the British Academy, and has been President of the Royal Economic Society, of the Econometric Society, of the European Economic Association and of the International Economic Association. He was an Honorary Member of the American Economic Association. He has served on the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, the Pension Law Review Committee, and the Commission on Social Justice. He has been a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique, advising the French Prime Minister. He was a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.

He is author of Unequal Shares, The Economics of Inequality, Lectures on Public Economics (with J.E. Stiglitz), Poverty and Social Security, Public Economics in Action, Incomes and the Welfare State, Poverty in Europe, The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State, and Social Indicators: The EU and Social Inclusion (with B Cantillon, E Marlier and B Nolan),  The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries, Public Economics in an Age of Austerity, and Inequality – What can be done?. He has published articles in, among other scientific journals, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Economic Theory, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, the Scandinavian Journal of Economics, and the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. He was the founder and for 25 years the editor of the Journal of Public Economics.

Sir Tony Atkinson died in Oxford on 1st of January 2017.

Career

  • Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1967-71
  • Professor of Economics, University of Essex, 1971-76
  • Visiting Professor of Economics at MIT, 1973
  • Professor of Political Economy, University College, London, 1976-79
  • Tooke Professor of Economic Science and Statistics, London School of Economics, 1980-92
  • Professor of Political Economy, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Churchill College, 1992-94
  • Warden, Nuffield College, Oxford, 1994-2005
  • Fellow of Nuffield College, 2005-
  • Holder of Chaire Blaise Pascal, Paris School of Economics, 2006-7
  • Professor of Economics, University of Oxford, 2007-9
  • F W Taussig Visiting Professor of Economics, Harvard University, 2009-11
  • Centennial Professor, London School of Economics, 2010-

Honours

  • Fellow of the Econometric Society, 1974- (President, 1988)
  • Fellow of the British Academy, 1984- (Vice President 1988-90)
  • Honorary Member of the American Economic Association, 1985-
  • Founding Member of the Academia Europaea, 1988-
  • President, European Economic Association, 1989
  • President, International Economic Association, 1989-1992
  • Foreign Honorary Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1994-
  • Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
  • President, Royal Economic Society, 1995-1998
  • President, Section F, British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1997
  • UAP Scientific Prize, Paris 1986
  • Frank E Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy, 1995
  • Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics 2004
  • Professor Luigi Tartafuri Prize, 2005
  • A.SK Social Science Prize, WZB, Berlin, 2007
  • President, Human Development and Capabilities Association, 2012-14
  • Honorary Doctor of the following Universities:
    • Frankfurt, 1987
    • Lausanne, 1988
    • University of Liège, 1989
    • Athens, University of Economics, 1991
    • Stirling, 1992
    • Edinburgh, 1994
    • Paris, Ecole Normale Supérieure 1995
    • Essex, 1995
    • Bologna, 1995
    • South Bank University, 1996
    • Louvain La Neuve, 1996
    • Nottingham 2000
    • London Metropolitan 2002
    • Gent, 2004
    • Antwerp, 2004
    • European University Institute, 2004
    • Molise, 2006
    • Marseille, 2010
    • Lisbon, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (ISEG) 2012

Professional Activities

  • Editor, Journal of Public Economics, 1971-1997
  • Chairman of Suntory-Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE, 1981-87
  • Chairman of Economics Committee, Social Science Research Council, 1979-1981
  • Chairman, Taxation Review Committee, Fabian Society, 1989-90
  • Member, Research Council of the European University Institute, Florence, 1988-1994
  • Chairman, Foundation for International Studies in Social Security, 1990-1992
  • Member, Section 37, Comité National du CNRS, 1992-1995
  • Member, Social Justice Commission, 1992-1994
  • Member, Economic and Social Research Council, 1994-1995
  • Trustee, Nuffield Foundation, 1996-2009
  • Chair, Academic Advisory Board, Anglo-German Foundation, 2005-9
  • President, Luxembourg Income Study, 2011-

Official Activities

  • Member, Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, 1978-1979
  • Member, Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee, 1984-1990
  • Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee, 1982-1983
  • Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Social Services Committee, 1988-1990
  • Member, Pension Law Review Committee, 1992-3
  • Member, Conseil d’Analyse Economique, advising the French Prime Minister 1997-2001
  • Chair, Atkinson Review of the Measurement of Government Output, Office for National Statistics, 2004-5
  • Member, European Statistics Governance Advisory Board, 2009-2012