Royal Economic Society
The Royal Economic Society is a professional association and learned society that promotes the study of economics. Originally established in 1890 as the British Economic Association, it was incorporated by royal charter on 2 December 1902. The Society is a charity registered with the U.K. Charity Commission under charity number 231508. Its patron is Charles III.
Governance and management
The Society is led by a Trustee Board that is responsible for developing and executing the Society's policies and activities, with day-to-day responsibility for the running of the Society delegated to the Chief Executive, Leighton Chipperfield. The Society's current president is Prof Imran Rasul.Logo
The logo of the Royal Economic Society is a bee because it is inspired by Bernard Mandeville's work The Fable of the Bees, which uses the beehive as a metaphor for economics and fundamental principles such as the division of labor and the invisible hand.Strategy
Following a member consultation, in late 2023 the RES launched its 2024-2028 strategy with a focus on four strategic priorities:- Bring communities of economists together
- Advocate for economics
- Improve diversity, inclusion and integrity in the profession
- Develop the next generation of economists
Membership
In 2023, the RES announced it was launching an Institutional Membership programme. The Bank of England, the Government Economic Service and Frontier Economics were announced as the Society's first institutional members.In 2025 the Society launched a Fellows category, recognising those who have made a substantial contribution to the discipline irrespective of the sector in which they are employed. RES Fellows are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FREcon. The founding Fellows were announced on 1 May 2025.
Publications
The Society publishes The Economic Journal, first published in 1891, and The Econometrics Journal, first published in 1998. Both journals are available online through the RES website. In 2024 it announced the launched of The Economic Journal Special Issues. Prof Alberto Bisin was appointed as the inaugural Special Issues Editor effective from September 2024.Policy and campaigns
The Society advocates for improved diversity and inclusion in economics and runs various activities to both measure and bring about this change. The Society also advocates for the importance of funding economic research and education, including via CHUDE, which comprises Heads of Economics at universities in the UK.History
British Economic Association was founded in response to changing attitudes towards economics in the 1880s. Up until that point, the study of economics was typically taught as part of a broad curriculum, alongside subjects such as history and philosophy, and those engaging in the study of economics came from a number of professions and academic disciplines. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there were academic movements to clearly demarcate and to define disciplines as scholarly subjects in their own right. For example, those in the fields of history and philosophy inaugurated such journals as The English Historical Review and Mind, publications aimed mainly at their respective areas of study. Economic thinkers followed this example.The same period also saw the revival of fundamentalist, socialist critique of economics. In order to protect the discipline from damaging criticism while still encouraging intellectual discussion, many economic thinkers strove to draw economics more decidedly within the realm of scholarly debate.
The establishment of an economic society in this era of change indicated a desire to strengthen economics as a well-respected academic discipline, and to encourage debate and research between specialist scholars. In an announcement to the American Economic Association dated 1887 which proposed the formation of an Economic Society in Britain, scholars acknowledged common criticisms of economics and the contemporary disunity in the discipline. They called for a society which would aim to advance theory, consolidate economic opinion, encourage historical research, and critique industrial and financial policy.
Initial proposals for a society
Initial proposals for a British Society of Economics were drafted as early as 1883. Discussion began between Herbert Somerton Foxwell and Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave. Palgrave had suggested creating a society specializing in the publication of translations and reprints of significant economic works. However, Foxwell had a more ambitious scheme in mind - a society that published a quarterly journal along the lines of the Quarterly Journal of Economics or the Journal des Économistes.There is no doubt that Foxwell's plans were influenced by foreign models, such as the German body Verein für Socialpolitik, founded in 1887, the French journals, the Journal des Économistes and the Revue d'Economie Politique established in 1841 and 1887, and the American Economic Association inaugurated in 1885. Indeed, in 1887, Foxwell published an announcement in the Association’s publication saying "it is scarcely doubtful that we shall shortly follow the lead so ably set us on your side of the Atlantic." As the discipline of economics was promoted and strengthened in America and Europe, scholars in the U.K. recognized an increasing urgency to ensure that British economic thought was represented. Certainly, Foxwell was not the only economist to propose the establishment of a scholarly journal in Britain. The Economic Review was established by scholars in Oxford in 1889, the year before the British Economic Association was inaugurated in London, and its publication, The Economic Journal, was set up.
While there was a recognized need for a society of economists in the 1880s, it took a considerable time for Foxwell’s plans to come to fruition. One of the reasons for the delay was Alfred Marshall, Professor at Cambridge. Foxwell and Palgrave were keen to involve Marshall in the development of the association and its publication. Marshall was fully supportive of their plans, but as preparations progressed, he became preoccupied in completing his Principles of Economics. His former pupil, Edward Gonner, tried to encourage Marshall to participate in discussions to finalise the society but was unable to drive Marshall to action. He remarked to Foxwell that:
... for the next two years or so the matter must rest in abeyance unless active measures be taken. Of course, I know he will be glad if such be done and I am sure he will render assistance but he will not take the initiative.
Gonner and Foxwell had to move on with the foundation of the society without Marshall. Marshall was only drawn back into the discussion when proposals for the nature of the society did not meet his approval.
Nature of the society
There had been much debate about what kind of society should be formed. Palgrave, Foxwell, and Marshall had discussed the idea that an economic journal should be attached to the Royal Statistical Society. But after some negative discussions with the society, the idea was dropped. Marshall had hoped the group would come together naturally, centred around scholars at Cambridge. Gonner, however, wanted the society to be an honoured institution of scholars. He argued that members should be selected "not for an interest in economics but for work." "Some scientific qualification" should also be essential for membership. Foxwell seems to have agreed with this approach. However, Marshall opposed the idea. He explained to Foxwell: "I don’t want to include 'mere' businessmen. But I don’t want to exclude Bank Directors and others of the class who are for me, at least, the most interesting members of the Political Economy Club...It is men of affairs from whom I learn". Marshall succeeded in persuading his friends. At its inauguration the society was made available to all those with an interest in economics, regardless of their scholarly qualifications.Finding an editor
The inclusive attitude of society membership was also extended to the aims of its proposed journal. It was agreed that the publication should provide a forum for all views and opinions. The criteria for selection in the journal would be scholarly excellence, not political or scholarly persuasion. However, there was much difficulty in finding a suitable editor to manage such a journal. Foxwell had favoured the appointment of John Neville Keynes as editor, but he was not available. Foxwell admitted that without Keynes, the appointment was a difficult one:...any number of men with strong views will volunteer, but these are just the persons we don’t want. We want cool heads, keen brains and impartial judgement. With these are required scholarship, information and, if possible, a knowledge of German. It seems to me a most difficult and delicate post.
The search for an editor caused serious delays. It was not until 1890, the year of the society’s inauguration, that Francis Ysidro Edgeworth was appointed editor. Edgeworth held a chair in Economics at King's College London and was appointed Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University in 1891. Though his academic standing made him an excellent candidate for the role, Edgeworth admitted the difficulties of establishing a new journal:
I wrote to Marshall asking advice on every small difficulty which arose, until he protested that, if the correspondence was to go on at that rate, he would have to use envelopes with my address printed on them.
Despite initial difficulties, Edgeworth’s editorship was highly successful and he remained editor for the next 34 years.