Dr Jonathan Aldred

Jonathan is an Official Fellow and College Lecturer in Economics. He is also our Director of Studies for Economics. 

Biography

Jonathan grew up in Nottinghamshire and first became interested in economics when trying to make sense of the turbulent politics and economics of Britain in the 1980s. Studying A-level economics was an obvious choice, because economic ideas seemed to be the impetus behind political change. Only later did he see how economic ideas can be used to obstruct change rather than enable it. Jonathan was an undergraduate and postgraduate student in Economics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (with a brief detour into studying law). After a short period lecturing at the University of Durham, he returned to Cambridge as a researcher in the Department of Land Economy, before becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel College. Beginning with his PhD on value conflicts in environmental policy-making, Jonathan has had a long-standing interest in the scope and limits of standard tools in economics (such as cost-benefit analysis) for informing policy choices. Outside academia, Jonathan enjoys cycling, walking, cooking, and good wine.

Teaching

In the Economics Tripos, Jonathan teaches first and second year Microeconomics, first year Maths, and optional papers including History and Philosophy of Economics. 
He has also discussed alternative perspectives on economics with students at the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism.

Research

Jonathan's research has explored a range of topics in the ethical foundations of orthodox economics and the economic policy derived from it, with a particular focus on environmental policy. Most of his research papers involve issues at the interface of economics, ethics and politics in the cost-benefit analysis of climate change, the precautionary principle, and carbon trading. 
Writing for a non-academic audience, Jonathan has shown how economic ideas have shaped our views about rationality, fairness, justice and moral behaviour more generally. In this way, economics in recent decades has influenced individual behaviour as well as the actions of governments and business. This is the subject of his most recent book Licence to be Bad: how economics corrupted us, Penguin: Allen Lane.