People
Programme Managers
Tim Besley
Sir Tim Besley is School Professor of Economics of Political Science and W Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE, and Director of STICERD. He is also a member of the National Infrastructure Commission. His research interests are in public policy and political economy. He is a past President of the European Economic Association, International Economic Association and the Econometric Society and is President of the Royal Economic Society.
Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey
Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science and Fellow of the British Academy and served as Head of the LSE Government Department from 2019-2022. Her research interests are in political economy, legislatures, deliberation and accountability. She is the author and editor of several books on trade policy and monetary policy and numerous articles on nineteenth-century trade policy and contemporary topics, such as the use of nonverbal communication in UK parliamentary committee hearings and political rhetoric on US national security.
Bryan Cheang
Bryan Cheang is currently a postdoctoral fellow at STICERD. He was previously the Assistant Director and Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society at King's College London where he received his PhD in Political Economy. His current research interests are in comparative political economy, the implications of complexity and bounded rationality on Confucian political theory and governance in East Asia. He is the author of Economic Liberalism and the Developmental State: Hong Kong and Singapore's Post-War Development and Institutions and Economic Development.
Any programme inquiries should be directed to Bryan Cheang.
Affiliated scholars
Adam Oliver
Adam Oliver is a behavioural economist at the LSE. He is Editor in Chief of the journals, 'Behavioural Public Policy' and 'Health Economics, Policy and Law', and Chair of the International Behavioural Public Policy Association. His recent books include 'The Origins of Behavioural Public Policy' (Cambridge, 2017) and 'Reciprocity and the Art of Behavioural Public Policy' (Cambridge, 2019). He is currently working on the third book in this trilogy, 'A Political Economy of Behavioural Public Policy'.
Paola Romero
Paola Romero is a political and moral philosopher from the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method at LSE. Her research has developed in the areas of political philosophy, moral philosophy, and the history of political thought. She currently explores Immanuel Kant's theory of the state and his account of a political will.
Melanie Xue
Melanie Meng Xue is Assistant Professor of Economic History at the LSE. Her work explores the rise of women, the self-perpetuation of authoritarian regimes, and the evolution of antisocial behavior in the early modern and modern China. By tracing the impact of historical events over time and in various institutional settings, her research centers on the role of values, beliefs and norms in shaping economic and political disparities. Another stream of her research examines oral traditions and shows that folklore is a powerful measure of the historical component of values in contemporary society, connecting history and culture.