Paul Ormerod


Paul Andrew Ormerod is a British economist who is a partner at Volterra Partners consultancy. Additionally, he is a visiting professor at UCL Centre for Decision Making Uncertainty.

Research

He has researched complexity, complex systems, nonlinear feedback, the boom and bust cycle of business and economic competition. Ormerod uses a multidisciplinary approach, making use of biology, physics, mathematics, statistics and psychology as sources of results that can be applied to economics.

Biography

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 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 criticised 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 a FTSE100 company. Volterra Partners was founded in 1998 with Bridget Rosewell and he has remained a partner as of December 2015.
He is currently 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.

Opinions

He believes shale fracking should not be opposed by environmentalists and that top-down measures are ineffective at reducing environmental harm. He has argued that capitalism and the profit motive have reduced global inequality.