Experts

Martin is Deputy Research Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and heads the Consumption Sector. His research focuses on public economics, industrial organisation and applied microeconometrics. He has published several articles on the effects and design of public policy aimed at altering consumer and firm behaviour.

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 Security Program.

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.

Oni is a PhD candidate in International Development at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research focuses on the analysis of bureaucratic autonomy within the context of Anti-Corruption commissions in Nigeria. He is passionate about making contributions to broader debates on institutional reforms and good governance in Africa generally. Oni holds a bachelor’s degree in economics (First Class Honours) from the University of Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Edinburgh. In 2012, Oni won the Nigeria’s Presidential Special Scholarship for Innovation and Development (PRESSID) for MSc and PhD studies in any of the 25 top universities globally.