RIP Nicholas Crafts (1949-2023)


The Institute of Economic Affairs was saddened to hear of the death of Professor Nick Crafts, the distinguished economic historian.

At the time of his death Nick Crafts was Professor of Economic History at the University of Sussex, though he had also held posts at Oxford, the LSE, Leeds and Warwick. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a Fellow of the British Academy, a former President of both the Economic History Society and the Royal Economic Society, and was made CBE for his services to economics in 2014. He was a governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and had served as a consultant for HM Treasury, the IMF and the World Bank.

Professor Crafts was a prolific writer on a wide range of topics, though probably best known for his research on the sources of long-run economic growth in Britain, and his data-based reassessment of the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Nick Crafts was a long-time member of the Academic Advisory Council of the IEA, for which he wrote Can De-Industrialisation Seriously Damage Your Wealth?, The Conservative Government’s Economic Record: An End of Term Report, and Britain’s Relative Economic Performance, 1870-1999.

He was also a member of the editorial board of Economic Affairs, the journal published by the IEA and the University of Buckingham. He contributed articles to the journal and assisted with refereeing. At the time he was hospitalised he was writing an article for us assessing the economics of the brief Truss administration.

We offer our sympathy to Nick’s family and friends.

 

Photo: MeJudice

Editorial and Research Fellow

Len Shackleton is an Editorial and Research Fellow at the IEA and Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham. He was previously Dean of the Royal Docks Business School at the University of East London and prior to that was Dean of the Westminster Business School. He has also taught at Queen Mary, University of London and worked as an economist in the Civil Service. His research interests are primarily in the economics of labour markets. He has worked with many think tanks, most closely with the Institute of Economic Affairs, where he is an Economics Fellow. He edits the journal Economic Affairs, which is co-published by the IEA and the University of Buckingham.


1 thought on “RIP Nicholas Crafts (1949-2023)”

  1. Posted 29/10/2023 at 10:45 | Permalink

    Very sad to hear the news. Nick Crafts was a very good economic historian and a practitioner of thorough, incisive research that is loosing traction in many learned institutions.

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