Richard Lewney is Chair of Cambridge Econometrics (CE), the company founded by Terry Barker and the principal source of income for the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics. He joined CE in 1988 and served as its Managing Director for two decades from the mid-1990s before succeeding Terry Barker as Chair in 2016. CE currently has a staff of about 60 with offices in Cambridge (UK), Brussels, Budapest and Northampton MA.
Richard specialises in the application of economic modelling to policy analysis, policy evaluation and possible futures, for government and private sector clients. He has over 35 years’ experience in applied economic modelling and analysis to support policymaking for governments, government agencies, the European Commission, NGOs and private sector clients. Over the past four years he has directed two major research projects for DG Energy to improve the methods of modelling the macroeconomic impacts of low-carbon policies.
He has previously directed: projects for the European Climate Foundation examining alternative pathways to a net-zero GHG emissions European economy by 2050 and the economic impacts of decarbonising road freight and car transport; and an analysis for the UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEPFI) of the economic impact of environmental degradation in an assessment of the role that environmental risk factors could play in sovereign credit risk assessments. He is currently leading the development of CE’s work to support financial institutions in their assessment of their exposure to physical and transition climate risks.
He won an Open Scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he achieved a double first in Economics. He subsequently studied for a Master’s degree in Economics as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.