Experts

Kate joined the IFS as a Research Economist in 2020 and works in the local government sector. Her current focus is the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on local authority finances. She also works on analysis of the ongoing major changes to English local government finance, and another project considering the distributional impacts of spending on public services. Before joining the IFS she worked as an economist at the Cabinet Office.

Timothy Ogden serves as Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative at NYU-Wagner. He speaks and writes regularly on financial inclusion, microfinance, inequality, and social investment. He is the author of Experimental Conversations, on the use of RCTs in development economics, and of the Weekly faiV, a widely read newsletter on financial inclusion, poverty and economic development. Tim also serves as a senior fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program and Financial

Myrto Oikonomou is an Economist at the Bank of England. She currently works in the Structural Economics Division in the Monetary Analysis Directorate. Myrto holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford and is currently reading for her DPhil in Economics at the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie in the intersection of international macroeconomics, macro-labour and uncertainty.

I am an Industrial Economist with extensive research and teaching experience. My recent research has modelled the incentives of colluding firms, with the aims of explaining real-world collusive behaviour and improving competition policy to regulate collusion and cartels. My ongoing research examines hub and spoke cartels.  I have taught Microeconomics, Industrial Organisation and Competition Policy and have a keen interest in using technology to enhance teaching and learning.

Özge Öner is an Associate Professor in Spatial Economics and Real Estate at the Department of Land Economy and a Fellow in Economics and Land Economy at Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge. Özge’s research deals with migration, labour mobility, micro-geography of segregation and ethnic enclaves, retail and service geography, urban amenities, the geography of entrepreneurship, and political geography.

Philip Oreopoulos is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and co-chairs the education program at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Dr. Oreopoulos’ current work focuses on education policy, especially the application of behavioral economics to education and child development. He often examines this field by initiating and implementing large-scale field experiments, with the goal of producing convincing evidence for public policy decisions.