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A diverse community of leading experts, policymakers and practitioners

The Institute’s key research themes are led by ten academic partners spread across the UK.

Working closely with policymakers

We’re a UK-wide research organisation exploring what productivity means for business

Businesses are crucial to solving the UK’s productivity problems.

Professor Anthony J. Venables CBE, FBA

Senior Research Fellow, The University of Oxford and Honorary Professor at Alliance Manchester Business School

Committees: Executive Committee, Executive Team, Productivity Commission
Research Theme: Geography & place

Career

Anthony J. (Tony) Venables is a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, part-time research professor at Monash University, Melbourne and Honorary Professor at Alliance Manchester Business School.  He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Regional Science Association and the British Academy. From 2020-22, he was the Research Director at The Productivity Institute.

Former positions include BP professor of economics at Oxford University and director of the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, chief economist at the UK Department for International Development, professor at the London School of Economics, and research manager of the trade group in the World Bank.  He has published extensively in the areas of international trade and spatial economics, including work on trade and market structure, economic integration, multinational firms, natural resources, and economic geography and its application to urban and regional issues.

Publications include The spatial economy; cities, regions and international trade, with M. Fujita and P. Krugman (MIT press, 1999), and Multinationals in the World Economy with G. Barba Navaretti (Princeton 2004).

Research project

Research output