Richard Bronk is a non-fiction author, specialising in the history of ideas, the philosophy of economics, and European political economy. Recent works have focused on how people make decisions and form expectations about the future in conditions of radical uncertainty; the dangers of regulatory and analytical monocultures; and the links between uncertainty and populism.
Richard also writes and researches about the structuring role of imagination, language, and metaphor in economic behaviour and the discipline of economics. He is currently working with Jens Beckert on the fragility of preferences and on literary aspects of economics, in particular fictional expectations. In the past, he has also written several papers about the European Union and a book about the philosophy and economics of progress. Richard's articles and lectures are interdisciplinary and approachable for those from different backgrounds; while his books and blogs span the range from purely academic to those intended for a broader readership.
Richard was educated at Merton College, Oxford from 1979-1983, where he was awarded first class honours and an MA (Oxon) in Literae Humaniores (Classics and Philosophy). He then spent seventeen years in the City of London – with positions including head of European equities at Baring Asset Management, European equity strategist at Merrill Lynch, and Adviser on European capital markets and political economy at the Bank of England.
From 2000-2007, Richard was a Teaching Fellow at the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – lecturing on varieties of capitalism, EMU, EU enlargement, and theoretical concepts in political economy. From 2007 until 2020, he was a Visiting Fellow - and more recently a Visiting Senior Fellow - at the European Institute, LSE.
During his time at LSE, Richard published his acclaimed book, The Romantic Economist - Imagination in Economics (2009) as well as articles on the financial crisis, reflexivity, and Hayek. He also published blogs and gave lectures on Brexit and the growing distrust of experts and provided written evidence to a House of Lords select committee on how to safeguard youth mobility. More recently, he co-edited with Jens Beckert Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy (2018). He also wrote several discussion papers with the late Wade Jacoby on the dangers of analytical and regulatory monocultures and the link between uncertainty and populism.
Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has given lectures and talks at a number of universities and institutes in the UK, the European Union, and the United States. He has also appeared on several BBC radio shows and as a speaker at UK literary and philosophy festivals. He lives with his wife in Dorset.
For details of Richard's book publications and book chapters, click here
For links to Richard's academic papers, click here
For links to Richard's blog and media articles, click here
For podcasts and recordings of some of Richard's lectures and talks, click here