Brian Nolan

Biography

Brian Nolan was Director of INET’s research programme on Economics, Inequality and Opportunity (formerly labelled Employment, Equity and Growth) and Professor of Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention from 2014-2024. He is currently Professorial Research Fellow Emeritus at INET and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College Oxford. He co-edited The Handbook of Economic Inequality (2008), The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income (2013), Changing Inequalities in Rich Countries: Analytical and Comparative Perspectives (2014), Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries: Thirty Countries’ Experiences (2014), and Children of Austerity: The Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries (2017), and with Christopher T. Whelan co-authored Poverty and Deprivation in Europe (2011), all published by Oxford University Press. The initial phase of inequality-focused research programme at INET sought to understand why current growth models are failing those on middle and lower incomes in many developed countries, and what policies may help to promote better, fairer growth. Research carried out by the group with the support of the Resolution Foundation was brought together in two volumes he edited, published by Oxford University Press in 2018: Inequality and Inclusive Growth in Rich Countries: Shared Challenges and Contrasting Fortunes and Generating Prosperity for Working Families in Affluent Countries. He directed the Oxford Martin Programme on Inequality and Prosperity from 2016-21 supported by Citi as part of its research partnership with the Oxford Martin School and focused on the drivers of inequality and how best to address it and promote inclusive growth. He was also principal investigator on a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation from 2017-19 on the intergenerational transmission of family wealth. Up to retirement from the University at end-September 2024 he was Oxford PI on the on-going multi-year research programme from 2020 supported by a Synergy Grant from the European Research Council for Towards Distributional National Accounts in collaboration with Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics) and Emmanuel Saez (University of California-Berkeley).