Adair Turner

Involvement Social

Lord Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2˚C by 2040 while stimulating economic development and social progress.

He was chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking until January 2019, where he remains a Senior Fellow. He is Chairman of Chubb Europe and on the Advisory Board of Envision Energy, a Shanghai-based group focussed on renewable energy, batteries and digital systems.

From 2008-2013, Lord Turner chaired the UK’s Financial Services Authority, and played a leading role in the post crisis redesign of global banking and shadow banking regulation.

Lord Turner has held high profile roles in public policy: he was Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (1995-2000); chairman of the UK Low Pay Commission (2002-2006); chairman of the Pensions Commision (2003-2006); he was the first chairman of the Climate Change Committee (2008-2012) an independent body to advise the UK Government on tackling climate change. The recommendations set out in their first report “Building a low-carbon economy” were adopted in 2009.

He became a cross bench member of the House of Lords in 2006.

Amongst his business roles, Lord Turner was at McKinsey&Co (1982-1995); was Vice-Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe (2000-2006) and a Non-Executive Director of a number of companies, including Standard Chartered plc (2006-2008).

He is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Financial Studies (Frankfurt) and a Visiting Fellow at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua University (Beijing). He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, and has published “Between Debt and the Devil” (Princeton 2015), and Economics after the Crisis (MIT 2012).

He is a Trustee Emeritus of the British Museum, honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017.

By this expert

Featuring this expert

Central Bank & Monetary Policy After the Global Financial Crisis

News Sep 25, 2015

Join Columbia University Dean Merit E. Janow for a talk by Lord Adair Turner, Chairman, Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Adair Turner on Debt

Video | May 13, 2015

The former chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority and author of the forthcoming book “Between Debt and the Devil” explains why private debt, not banks, deepened the financial crisis and continues to cause trouble today.

Caught in a Debt Trap

Video | Apr 7, 2015

In his latest annual address at Cass Business School, Visiting Professor Lord Adair Turner warned that the world is caught in a ‘debt overhang’.

The Consequences of Money-Manager Capitalism

Video | Oct 20, 2014

In the wake of World War II, much of the western world, particularly the United States, adopted a new form of capitalism called “managerial welfare-state capitalism.”

Offsite links

Instability in a Monetary Economy

May 12, 2016 Chicago Booth School

"There are no riskless ways out"

Jan 24, 2016 Bilanz

Lord Turner on finance and inclusive economic transformation

Nov 24, 2015 Overseas Development Institute

Debt Déjà Vu

Oct 5, 2015 Project Syndicate

The Debt Business

Aug 25, 2015 BBC Radio 4

The Real Demographic Challenge

Aug 14, 2015 Project Syndicate

Greece for Grownups

Jul 12, 2015 Project Syndicate

China’s Real Reform Challenge

Jun 11, 2015 Project Syndicate

The Debt Dilemma

Apr 16, 2015 Project Syndicate

Caught in a Debt Trap

Mar 24, 2015 Cass Business School

Japan’s Accounting Problem

Mar 15, 2015 Project Syndicate

The Global Economy’s Chinese Headwinds

Feb 11, 2015 Project Syndicate

Progress and Monetisation

Feb 3, 2015 Berfrois

Have We Become Too Flexible?

Jan 21, 2015 Project Syndicate

Please Steal Our Fossil Fuels

Dec 22, 2014 Project Syndicate

Germany’s Secret Credit Addiction

Nov 9, 2014 Project Syndicate

China’s Balancing Act

Oct 7, 2014 Project Syndicate

Facing Reality in the Eurozone

Sep 7, 2014 Project Syndicate

When Fewer Is Better

Aug 12, 2014 Project Syndicate

The Trade Delusion

Jul 17, 2014 Project Syndicate

The Great Credit Mistake

Jun 5, 2014 Project Syndicate

The Perils of Financial Freedom

May 8, 2014 Project Syndicate

The High-Tech, High-Touch Economy

Apr 15, 2014 Project Syndicate

Rethinking the Monetization Taboo

Mar 17, 2015 Project Syndicate

In Praise of Fragmentation

Feb 17, 2014 Project Syndicate

Debt and Demand

Jan 9, 2014 Project Syndicate

Inequality by the Click

Jan 7, 2014 Project Syndicate

The Failure of Free-Market Finance

Sep 3, 2013 Project Syndicate

Overt Monetary Finance and Crisis Management

Aug 9, 2013 Project Syndicate

Too Much “Too Big to Fail”?

Sep 1, 2010 Project Syndicate

The Uses and Abuses of Economic Ideology

Jul 14, 2010 Project Syndicate