About Us

Professor Oriana Bandiera.
Director of STICERD and Professor of Economics.

Professor John Hills
Deputy Director of STICERD, Director of CASE, Professor of Social Policy

The Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) were established in 1978 with funds donated by Suntory Limited and the (then) Toyota Motor Company Limited of Japan, with further donations from Suntory Limited in 1984 and 1989 and the Toyota Motor Corporation in 1995. We have also enjoyed the support of the Saji Research Lectureship in Japanese Economic and Social History. Since 1995 we have been organised under two broad centres named for each of our sponsors, but the work of the centres remains closely integrated. Since April 2001 STICERD has been based in the newly established LSE Research Laboratory.

Since its formation, STICERD has had five Chairmen (renamed Director in 2001): Professors Michio Morishima, Tony Atkinson, Nick Stern, Howard Glennerster and Tim Besley. Janet Hunter was Acting Director from September 2006 to August 2007. Oriana Bandiera became Director in 2012.

STICERD is both a thriving research community within the London School of Economics and Political Science and a source of funding for a variety of School-wide initiatives. We currently hold a total of £3.3 million in grant funding in addition to the support received from the endowment.

We have five resident research programmes and support two non-resident programmes in economic theory and econometrics. The resident researchers principally comprise graduate students, full-time research staff and members of the LSE teaching faculty. On average seventy-five resident researchers are involved in the work of the centres at any one time.

On behalf of the research programmes STICERD hosts academic visitors and research associates from all over the world.

As well as supporting internal research, the centres fund:

Small research grants for LSE academic staff;
The LSE and Toyota lectures series;
Seminars in a variety of subjects, including Theoretical Economics, Econometrics, International and Japanese Studies, Taxation, Capital Markets, Economics of Industry, Development and Growth and Work-in-Progress;
The visitors programme;
Eight series of discussion papers: Distributional Analysis Research, Development Economics, Economics of Industry, Econometrics, International Studies, Japanese Studies, Political Economy and Public Policy, and Theoretical Economics;
The ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion Toyota Fellow.

These benefit the entire research community at the LSE. In the academic year 2005-2006 we funded such schemes to the tune of £201,500.

On behalf of the LSE, the centres publish Economica.

CASE Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, an ESRC-funded Research Centre, is located within STICERD and benefits from the centres' support, including funding of its Toyota Fellow. CASE is one of the research centres of the new LSE Research Laboratory.