2010 Distinguished CES Fellow

Richard Blundell

For centuries, the design of taxation has been a central question of political economy, but tax systems in practice are often higgledy-piggledy and under strain. In order to improve this state of affairs, a number of questions spring to mind. What are the characteristics of a good tax system for an open developed economy? To which extent does the reality conform to these ideals? How might it realistically be reformed in that direction?

Richard Blundell, this year’s Distinguished CES Fellow, will attempt to shed light on these and other such questions with his three-part Munich Lectures in Economics, entitled “Empirical Evidence and Tax Reform: Lessons from the Mirrlees Review”.

The first lecture will provide a broad overview of the way new evidence on employment, savings and consumer behaviour in modern open economies has changed the view of tax design. The second and third lectures, in turn, will focus in deeper detail on the key margins of adjustment to tax reform, evidence on the size of responses, and draw the implications for the reform of earnings, savings and indirect taxation.

Drawing on the expert evidence in Dimensions of Tax Design, based on the Mirrlees Review – a major collaborative research venture led by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, IFS – Mr Blundell will provide an integrated view of tax reform grounded in rich economic evidence and practicable in terms of law and policy.

On Richard Blundell

Richard Blundell is Professor of Economics at University College London, where he holds the Ricardo Chair of Political Economy. Since 1986, he has also been the Research Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London.

Mr Blundell studied Economics, Statistics and Econometrics in Bristol and London (LSE) and became a Professor at the University College in 1984.

By now, Mr Blundell is one of the most-cited economists and has made many important contributions in public economics and other fields. His estimators and methods have substantially changed the econometric analysis of the labour market and social reforms.

In 1995 he was awarded the Yrjö Jahnsson Prize, in 2000 the Econometric Society Frisch Prize and, in 2008, he was the 4th recipient of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize. In addition, he has an Honorary Doctorate of the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. For his contributions to Economics and Social Sciences, he was awarded an Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for 2006.

He was elected Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1991, Fellow of the British Academy in 1996, Honorary Fellow of the American Economic Association in 2001, Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2002, Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2003, President of the European Economic Association for 2004, and President of the Econometric Society for 2006. He is currently the President of the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Labour Economics.

Richard Blundell is author or editor of many prestigious journals. In his scientific career he has published nine books and many articles in the leading journals. The variety of his publications underlines his heterogenous research interests, which concern the analysis of consumer behaviour as well as studies of the labour market and social reforms.

The Distinguished CES Fellow Award

Every year the Center for Economic Studies (CES) of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) awards a prize to an outstanding economist who has greatly contributed to the understanding of economic policy problems.

Richard Blundell follows in the footsteps of previous prominent awardees such as Avinash Dixit (1994), Anthony Atkinson (1995), Jean Tirole (1996), Paul Krugman (1997; Nobel Laureate 2008), Rudiger Dornbusch (1998), Guido Tabellini (1999), Peter Diamond (2000; Nobel Laureate 2010), Oliver Hart (2001), Nicholas Stern (2002), James Poterba (2003), Andrei Shleifer (2004), Bruno S. Frey (2005), Alberto Alesina (2006), Philippe Aghion (2007), Olivier Blanchard (2008), and Robin Boadway (2009. The winners give the Munich Lectures in Economics 2010 as part of the ceremony. The prize is endowed with 10,000 euros.

The award ceremony and first lecture, which enjoys the generous support of Munich Re, will start on Tuesday, 16 November 2010 at 6 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The entire lecture series will also be published at a later date by MIT Press.