Discover the Best Books Written by Paul Ormerod
Paul Ormerod was the head of the Economic Assessment Unit at The Economist and the director of economics at the Henley Centre for Forecasting in England. He taught economics at the universities of London and Manchester and was a founder of the Volterra consulting firm. He lives in London.
Ormerod has researched complexity, complex systems, nonlinear feedback, business boom and bust cycle, and economic competition. He uses a multidisciplinary approach, making use of biology, physics, mathematics, statistics, and psychology as sources of results that can be applied to economics.
Ormerod was born in Rochdale. After leaving Manchester Grammar School, he completed his undergraduate economic studies at Christ's College, Cambridge, and his postgraduate studies at St Catherine's College, Oxford, for which he was awarded a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in economics. Upon graduation, he worked as a forecaster at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
In 1994, his book The Death of Economics was released. The book criticized the mainstream economic practice and made suggestions for reform. He has founded several companies, including the Henley Centre and Volterra Partners. The Henley Centre was later sold to an FTSE100 company. Volterra Partners was founded in 1998 with Bridget Rosewell, and he has remained a partner as of December 2015.
He is the President of Rochdale Hornets RLFC. He was interviewed for the BBC's documentary High Anxieties – The Mathematics of Chaos. The video, directed by David Malone, was about unpredictability in the economy and the environment.
Ormerod was the Labour Party candidate for Huntingdonshire in the February 1974 General Election. A Eurosceptic, in the 1990s, he was a member of the Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign. He is a supporter of Brexit.