Tim Harford Explained

Tim Harford
Birth Name:	Timothy Douglas Harford
Birth Date:	1973 9, df=yes^[1]
Birth Place:	Kent
Citizenship:	United Kingdom
Employer:	BBC Financial Times International Finance Corporation
Education:	Aylesbury Grammar School
Alma Mater:	University of Oxford^[2]
Awards:	Bastiat Prize (2007)

Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford.^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]} Harford is the author of four economics books^{[6] [8]} and writes his long-running Financial Times column, The Undercover Economist, syndicated in Slate magazine, which explores the economic ideas behind everyday experiences. His column in the Financial Times, Since You Asked, ran between 2011 and 2014 and offered a sceptical look at the news of the week.^[9]

Since October 2007 Harford has presented the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less. The series segments are also available as podcasts. Subsequently, Harford launched his own podcast on the podcast production network Pushkin Industries, called Cautionary Tales.^{[10] [11]}

Education

Harford was born in Kent. He was educated at Aylesbury Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE)^[2] and then a Master of Philosophy in Economics, in 1998.^[12] Harford said that he originally planned to drop economics when studying towards his undergraduate degree but that his economics tutor Peter Sinclair convinced him otherwise.^[13]

Career

Harford joined the Financial Times in 2003 on a fellowship in commemoration of business columnist Peter Martin.^{[14] [15]} He continued to write his financial column after joining International Finance Corporation in 2004, and he rejoined the Financial Times as economics lead writer in April 2006. He is also a member of the newspaper's editorial board.

Tim has spoken at TED, PopTech and the Sydney Opera House. He is a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (FSS).^{[16] [17]}

In August 2007, he presented a television series on the BBC, Trust Me, I'm an Economist.^{[18] [19]} In October 2007, Harford replaced Andrew Dilnot on the BBC Radio 4 series More or Less. From November 2016, he presented an economic history documentary radio and podcast series 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. Since November 2019, he has been presenting the podcast series Cautionary Tales. On 13 November 2020 he started a new podcast series on COVID-19 Vaccination called How to Vaccinate the World.^[20]

Harford is managed by the agency Knight Ayton.^[21]

Awards

• More or Less won the Royal Statistical Society's 2010 award for statistical excellence in broadcast journalism.^[22] In 2017 Harford was made an Honorary Fellow of the society.^[23]
• More or Less won Mensa International's award for promoting intelligence in public life.^[24]
• Harford was awarded the Bastiat Prize for economic journalism in 2007 (shared with Jamie Whyte).^[25] In 2010 he again drew with Whyte, in second place.
• Harford was appointed Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to Improving Economic Understanding ^[26]

Publications

• The Market for Aid^[27]
• The Undercover Economist^[28]
• The Logic of Life^[8]
• Dear Undercover Economist: Priceless Advice on Money, Work, Sex, Kids, and Life's Other Challenges^[29]
• Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure^[6]
• The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Runor Ruinan Economy^[30]
• Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives^[31]
• Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy^[32]
• The Next Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy^[33]
• How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers^[34] published in North America as: The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics^[35]

Personal life

Harford lives in Oxford with his wife Fran Monks, a photographer, and their three children.^[21]

Notes and References

1. on 27th of September 1973.
2. Web site: Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Tim Harford, writer and economist. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passedfailed-an-education-in-the-life-of-tim-harford-writer-and-economist-410282.html . 7 May 2022 . subscription . live. London. The Independent. independent.co.uk. Jonathan. Sale. 3 August 2006.
3. Web site: Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist - Biography. Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist. 2 December 2017.
4. http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/8348 Video (and audio) of interview of Tim Harford
5. http://colinmarshall.libsyn.com/undercover_economist_tim_harford An interview with Tim Harford about The Logic of Life
6. Web site: Roberts. Russ. Harford on Adapt and the Virtues of Failure. EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty. Russ Roberts. 23 May 2011.
7. http://ubs.com/nobel A series of short film commentaries by Tim Harford on the work of past Nobel Laureates in economics, as part of the Nobel Perspectives project
8. Book: Tim Harford. The Logic of Life: The Undercover Economist. Abacus. London. 2009. 978-0-349-12041-6.
9. Web site: Since You Asked. Tim Harford. 5 October 2017.
10. Web site: 2018-11-09. iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries Announce Major New Sales and Production Partnership. 2021-12-19. iHeartMedia. en.
11. Web site: Cautionary Tales. Tim Harford - Podcasts. 17 April 2021.
12. MPhil. Tim. Harford. Sequential auctions with financially constrained bidders. University of Oxford. 1998. ox.ac.uk. 43261224.
13. Web site: Bowers. John. John Bowers (lawyer). 2021-02-16. Principal's Blog: 16th February 2021. 2022-02-02. Brasenose College, Oxford.
14. http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/ Blog at the FT, which began October 2007
15. http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/timharford Harford's column at the Financial Times
16. Web site: Mr Tim Harford, Visiting Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150129103543/http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/People/sites/Tim.Harford/SitePages/Biography.aspx. 29 January 2015.
17. News: Biography. Chiappella. Wolf. 17 November 2007. Tim Harford. 30 November 2017.
18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5260120.stm All is fair in love and war and poker – details of the first episode of "Trust me, I'm an economist" (BBC)
19. Web site: Trust Me, I'm an Economist. Tim Harford. 5 August 2006. 17 April 2021.
20. Web site: How to vaccinate the world. https://web.archive.org/web/20201125214017/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08ycnc5. 25 November 2020.
21. Web site: Tim Harford OBE - Knight Ayton. knightayton.co.uk.
22. http://membership.rss.org.uk/main.asp?page=2838 Royal Statistical Society awards
23. Web site: RSS announces honours for 2017. Royal Statistical Society. 24 September 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200804032405/https://www.statslife.org.uk/news/3204-rss-announces-honours-for-2017. 4 August 2020. 21 February 2017. dead.
24. http://www.mensa.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=1363&d=23&h=5&f=3 More or Less Honoured
25. http://www.policynetwork.net/bastiat-prize/media/fifth-annual-bastiat-prize-journalism-awarded-jointly-tim-harford-and-jamie-whyt Fifth Annual Bastiat Prize awarded jointly to Tim Harford and Jamie Whyte
26. Web site: New Year Honours list 2019. UK Government. 31 December 2018. 12 February 2019.
27. The Market for Aid (2005) with Michael Klein,
28. The Undercover Economist (2005),
29. Dear Undercover Economist: Priceless Advice on Money, Work, Sex, Kids, and Life's Other Challenges (2009). New York, Random House. 2009.
30. 'The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Runor Ruinan Economy (2014). Penguin Riverhead Books (US).
31. Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives (2016). Riverhead Books.
32. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy (2017). Little, Brown.
33. The Next Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy (2020). The Bridge Street Press.
34. The Next Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy (2020). Little, Brown.
35. The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics (2021). Riverhead Books.