Professor Sir Richard Blundell holds the David Ricardo Chair of Political Economy at University College London where he was appointed Professor of Economics in 1984, and was Chair of the Department 1988-1992. He is a graduate of the University of Bristol and London School of Economics. From 1986 - 2016 he was Research Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). He is Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP) at IFS. He is an associate faculty