Member of the CASE Advisory Council

From June 2007: IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, London School of Economics, heading the India Observatory within the LSE's Asia Research Centre, and Chairman of the new Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (announced in April 2008).

From 2005-2007 he was adviser to the UK Government on the Economics of Climate Change and Development, reporting to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Head of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. He was also Head of the Government Economic Service, 2003-2007; Second Permanent Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury, 2003-2005; and, Director of Policy and Research for the Prime Minister's Commission for Africa, 2004-2005.

From 2000-2003, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics. From 1994 until late 1999, Chief Economist and Special Counsellor to the President European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Before 1994 mostly in academic life: including 1986-1993 at the London School of Economics (LSE), Sir John Hicks Chair in Economics. Taught and researched at many places including Oxford and Warwick universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore and Delhi, and the People's University of China in Beijing.

He is Special Adviser to HSBC's Chairman on Economic Development and Climate Change. He will be responsible for advising HSBC on economic development issues and the implications of climate change on the Group and its clients.

Research and publications have focused on the economics of climate change, economic development and growth, economic theory, tax reform, public policy and the role of the state and economies in transition. First books were on tea in Kenya and the Green Revolution in India (where he lived for 8 months in a village in Northern India in 1974/75). Has written books on crime and the criminal statistics in the UK and a few on public finance and development. His most recent book on development "Growth & Empowerment: Making Development Happen" was published in April 2005. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was published in October 2006 (http://www.sternreview.org.uk), and in printed form by Cambridge University Press in January 2007. He has published more than 15 books and 100 articles.

Served on committees of OXFAM, ODA, and the UN. A Fellow of the British Academy (July 1993), Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998). BA Cambridge (Mathematics), D.Phil Oxford (Economics), Honorary Doctorates: from a number of universities, including Warwick and Cambridge, Honorary Fellow, St Catherine's College, Oxford, The Queen's College, Oxford and Peterhouse, Cambridge. Visiting Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford.

He was knighted for 'services to economics' in June 2004; his cross-bench non-party political peerage was announced in October 2007, and he was 'introduced' to the House of Lords in December 2007.