Tim Harford, described by the New Statesman as ‘perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world’, is a behavioural economist, BBC radio and TV presenter and award-winning Financial Times columnist. Sometimes called ‘Britain’s Malcolm Gladwell’, Tim offers a distinctive blend of storytelling, humour and intelligence.
Tim Harford is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of “The Next Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy”, “Messy”, and the million-selling “The Undercover Economist”. Tim is a senior columnist at the Financial Times, and the presenter of Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the iTunes-topping series “Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy”, and the new podcast “Cautionary Tales”.
Sometimes called ‘Britain’s Malcolm Gladwell’, «Tim offers a distinctive blend of storytelling, humour and intelligence».
Tim Harford is a senior columnist for the Financial Times. His long-running column, “The Undercover Economist”, reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences, while he also writes op-eds, interviews and long feature articles for the FT. Tim’s first book, “The Undercover Economist” has sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide in 30 languages.
In his book “How To Make The World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers”, Tim Harford takes us deep into the world of disinformation and obfuscation, bad research and misplaced motivation to find those priceless jewels of data and analysis that make communicating with numbers worthwhile. Using ten simple rules for understanding numbers – plus one golden rule – this extraordinarily insightful book shows how if we keep our wits about us, thinking carefully about the way numbers are sourced and presented, we can look around us and see with crystal clarity how the world adds up.
As a broadcaster, Tim has presented television and radio series for the BBC, including “More or Less”, “Pop Up Ideas“, “Trust Me, I’m an Economist” and “50 Things That Made the Modern Economy“.
The Times of London recently rated both “More or Less” and “50 Things” among the world’s best 10 podcasts. His new podcast, produced by Pushkin Industries (Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg) is “Cautionary Tales“.
Tim has appeared on the Colbert Report, Newsnight, Marketplace, Planet Money, PM, Today, The One Show and many other popular radio and TV programs. His writing 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 Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
He was the first Peter Martin Fellow at the Financial Times, and was a member of the Financial Times editorial board from 2006-2009. He previously worked for Shell and for the World Bank. Tim was a member of the Royal Economic Society council 2011-2017. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Tim has spoken at TED, PopTech and the Sydney Opera House. Tim was made an OBE for services to improving economic understanding in the New Year honours of 2019.