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John Van Reenen

Professor, London School of Economics

John Van Reenen the Gordon Y Billard Professor in Management and Economics and is jointly appointed as Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and in the Department of Economics.

From October 2003 to July 2016 John Van Reenen was Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and the Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, Europe’s leading applied economics research centre.

In 2016 he received the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for services to Economics and Public Policy Making, and in 2009 was awarded the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, the European equivalent to the US Bates Clark Medal.

Van Reenen has published widely on the economics of innovation, labor markets and productivity. He has been a senior policy advisor to the Secretary of State for Health, Downing Street, and for many international organizations. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford and at Harvard University, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a Professor at University College London, a partner in Lexecon Ltd. (now CRAI), and Chief Technology Officer of a software start-up.

Van Reenen holds a BA in economics and social and political sciences from Queens College, University of Cambridge, an MSc in industrial relations from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from University College London in economics.

Featured publications

Working Papers Production function estimation using subjective expectations data

July 3, 2026

  • John Van Reenen | Professor, London School of Economics
  • Agnes Norris Keiller – London School of Economics

     Áureo de Paula – University College London, Institute for Fiscal Studies and CeMMAP

    Economists have struggled for decades to estimate production functions accurately. This paper aims to define a new statistical method for measuring how firms turn inputs, such as labor, capital and materials, into output.

Working Papers Ray of Hope? China and the Rise of Solar Energy

March 3, 2026

  • John Van Reenen | Professor, London School of Economics
  • Ignacio Banares-Sanchez

    Robin Burgess

    David Laszlo,

    Pol Simpson

    Yifan Wang

    Do industrial policies that promote clean energy offer a “ray of hope”, increasing a country’s growth and welfare, whilst simultaneously reducing carbon emissions? This paper examines whether the impact of Chinese solar subsidies whose implementation by city-regions went alongside massive expansion of the sector and a dramatic fall in global solar prices.