Picture of Sir John Kay

Sir John Kay

Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, Fellow, St John's College, Oxford

Sir John Kay is a Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. His interests focus on the relationships between economics and business.

Sir John Kay

Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, Fellow, St John's College, Oxford

Sir John Kay is a Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. His interests focus on the relationships between economics and business. His career has spanned academic work and think tanks, business schools, company directorships, consultancies and investment companies. For twenty years, he wrote a regular column for the Financial Times. He was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s 2021 Birthday Honours List for services to economics, business and finance.

His witty and authoritative style has won a wide following for his books and articles, which have been recognised by numerous awards and prizes. Forty years after he co-authored The British Tax System (a book which went through five editions) with Mervyn King (who would later become Governor of the Bank of England and Lord King of Lothbury), the two authors came together again with a very different subject. Radical Uncertainty was published by The Bridge Street Press in March 2020.

John’s latest book Greed is Dead, written jointly with Sir Paul Collier, was published by Penguin Books in July 2020.

Contributions to The Starling Compendium

External Materials

Greed Is Dead
Greed Is Dead

Politics After Individualism

This book shows that the age of homo economicus and centralisation is coming to an end. Instead, Collier and Kay argue that community and mutuality will be the drivers of successful societies in the future - as they are already in some parts of the world. They show how politics can reverse the move to extremes of right and left in recent years, that the centre can hold and that if we think differently we can find common ground to the benefit of all.