Nicholas Barr FRSA, FREcon has an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is Professor in Public Economics at the London School of Economics, the author of numerous articles, and author or editor of over twenty books, including The Economics of the Welfare State (6th edition, 2012), Pension Reform: A Short Guide (with Peter Diamond) (2010, also in Chinese and Spanish), and Financing Higher Education: Answers from the UK (with Iain Crawford), (2005). The heart of his work is an exploration of how market failures can both explain and justify the existence of welfare states. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Social Security Review and an Associate Editor of CESifo Economic Studies, the Australian Economic Review and the Journal of the Economics of Ageing.
Alongside teaching and research is wide-ranging involvement in policy. He worked at the World Bank from 1990-1992 on the design of income transfers and health finance in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, and from 1995-1996 as one of the authors of the World Bank's World Development Report 1996: From Plan to Market. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund, a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils on Demographic Shifts and on Ageing Society and a member of the governing bodies of HelpAge International and the Pensions Policy Institute.
Since the mid 1980s he has been active in the debate about financing higher education, advocating a system of income-contingent student loans collected alongside income tax or social security contributions. In the UK, he argued for many years for tuition fees fully covered by income-contingent loans, and he and his colleague Iain Crawford have been described as the architects of the 2006 reforms in England. He led the team that designed the student loan system in Hungary and has advised governments in Australia, New Zealand and Chile. His impact case study (top-rated in the UK 2014 Research Assessment Framework), can be found here and the associated video here. In 2017-18 he was a Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee for their Report on Treating Students Fairly: The Economics of Post-School Education.
He is also involved in pensions policy. He was a member of a small group invited to advise the government of China on pension reform, presenting their findings to the Premier in 2004; and he and Peter Diamond were invited to present a follow-up report in 2009. More recently, he was a member of a Presidential Commission on Reform of the Pension System in Chile which presented its report to the President in 2015. He has also advised governments in the UK, China, Finland, Sweden and South Africa (where he also contributed to the Lund Committee on Child and Family Support).
'Can we afford the welfare state?',In: Franklin, Ben, Urzi Brancati, Cesira and Hocklaf, Dean, (eds.) Towards a new age: The future of the UK welfare state. The International Longevity Centre, London, UK, 2016, pp. 35-40.
Credit crisis and pensions: international scope In: Bovenberg, Lans, van Ewijk, Casper and Westerhout, Ed, (eds.) The Future of Multi-Pillar Pensions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2012, pp. 90-141. ISBN 9781107022263
The Economics of Welfare - Pensions, Health Care, Unemployment and Long-term Care Insurance in the Twenty First Century, (Tokyo: Kouseikan, 2007), ISBN 978-4-332-60083-1 (Japanese translation of The Welfare State as Piggy Bank, 2001)
(with Peter Diamond) 'The Economics of Pensions', Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 22. No. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 15-39
Social Security Reform in China: Issues and Options, Policy Study of the China Economic Research and Advisory Programme, January 2005 (with Mukul Asher, Peter Diamond, Edwin Lim, and James Mirrlees), also in Chinese. See also Social Security Reform in China: Further Notes On Issues And Options in English and Chinese.
The Economics of the Welfare State, 4th edition, Oxford University Press and Stanford University Press, 2004. (also in Hungarian and Korean)
'Genetic Screening and Insurance', in Third Report: Human Genetics: The Science and Its Consequences, Volume II Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Session 1994-95, HC 41-IV, HMSO, 1995, pp. 242-247.
'Economic Theory and the Welfare State: A Survey and Interpretation', Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 1992, pp. 741-803.
Funding post-compulsory education. In: Johnes, Geraint, Johnes, Jill, Agasisti, Tommaso and López-Torres, Laura, (eds.) Handbook on the Economics of Education. Edward Elgar, 2017.
Milton Friedman and the finance of higher education. In: In: Cord, Robert and Hammond, J. Daniel , (eds.) Milton Friedman: Contributions to Economics and Public Policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2016, pp. 436-463. ISBN 9780198704324
'Financing higher education: tax, graduate tax or loans?', in Hills, John, Le Grand, Julian, and Piachaud, David (eds) (2007), Making Social Policy Work: Essays in honour of Howard Glennerster, Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 109-130.
'Financing Higher Education: Answers from the UK', with Iain Crawford, London and New York: Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-34857-9. Table of Contents (PDF)
'Education Funding, Equity and the Life Cycle'in Falkingham, Jane and Hills, John (eds), The Dynamic of Welfare: The Welfare State and the Life Cycle, Prentice-Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995, pp. 137-149 (with Jane Falkingham and Howard Glennerster).
'Paying for Learning', STICERD Discussion Paper WSP/94, September 1993 (with Jane Falkingham)
