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Tim Harford

Senior Columnist

Tim Harford writes the Undercover Economist column, and was previously an economics leader writer for the FT. He first joined the newspaper as Peter Martin Fellow in 2003.

Tim is the author of ten books, including the million-selling The Undercover Economist and most recently How To Make The World Add Up and The Truth Detective. He hosts the Cautionary Tales podcast and presents More or Less on BBC Radio.

Tim is the winner of the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence, the Wincott Prize, the Bastiat Prize, the Rybczynski Prize and several other awards. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He was made an OBE in the 2019 new year honours list “for services to improving economic understanding”.

Email Tim Harford @TimHarford  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
  • Friday, 18 April, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    The value of institutional memory

    Why some organisations are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again

    Cartoonish illustration of a book titled “History” inside a glass box that reads “Break glass in case of emergency”
  • Friday, 11 April, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    How to do without the Donald

    For most of us, the realm of international events is a place to visit, not a place to live

    Cartoonish illustration of a sleeping sheep, with a beatific smile on its face
  • Friday, 4 April, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Predictions aren’t always about the future

    Accuracy is hard work and rewarded late. Its much easier to make a forecast seem entertaining

  • Friday, 28 March, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Elon Musk is wrong about GDP

    The tech tycoon is not the first to misunderstand what gross domestic product is meant to measure  

  • Friday, 21 March, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    How to cure ‘premature enumeration’

    People who fall for trick puzzles are more likely to fall for disinformation too

    A surreal depiction of a mathematical vortex, with equations and formulas spiraling into a deep tunnel-like void
  • Friday, 14 March, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    The tao of bad buildings

    The predictable demise of an award-winning piece of architecture

  • Friday, 7 March, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Life lessons from Donald ‘Shoup Dogg’ Shoup

    The economist’s genius was to take a problem that seemed boring and trivial, and show that it was neither

    An aerial view of a parking lot with a single space replaced by a lush green garden, where three people in white clothing are tending to plants, surrounded by parked cars
  • Friday, 28 February, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    The selfish guide to decarbonising

    New research suggests a US totally uninterested in global agreements would still see the cost benefits of reducing emissions

  • Friday, 21 February, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    An alternative take on Trump’s favourite word

    Seen from a different angle, would the US president still choose tariffs?

  • Friday, 14 February, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    What Elon Musk can learn from the original Doge

    Why governance matters and other lessons from 13th century Venice

  • Friday, 7 February, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    The case for ‘late bloomers’

    Ageism in the workplace is not only concerning, it’s wrong-headed

    A digital manipulation of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait, featuring a gold medal with a red ribbon around his neck
  • Friday, 31 January, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    It’s February. Time for another fresh start?

    Most of the resolutions we make are unserious. It doesn’t have to be like that

  • Friday, 24 January, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Can economic growth still make us happy?

    Half a century after Richard Easterlin founded the economics of wellbeing, the question remains unsettled

    A detailed image of a $100 bill showing Benjamin Franklin’s face prominently, with three creases running down it
  • Friday, 17 January, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Want to change? Consider your situation

    Our personalities are a less important predictor of our behaviour than we might think

    A rectangular maze with a starting point labeled ‘A’ on the top left and an ending point labeled ‘B’ on the bottom right. A red line traces the solution path around the maze’s outer edge
  • Friday, 10 January, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Do you want the good feedback, or the bad feedback? 

    When people are shown their failures, they don’t improve

    A graphic of a red circular sign with a thumbs-up symbol inside, set against a light green background
  • Friday, 3 January, 2025
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Forecast mostly gloomy, but that’s a good thing

    Forewarned isn’t always forearmed. Is there a better way to consider the future?

    A yellow diamond-shaped warning sign depicting multiple weather conditions, including a sun, cloud, lightning bolt, snowflakes, and a raindrop
  • Friday, 20 December, 2024
    Undercover EconomistCurrencies
    What if DogeCoin becomes the US currency? And more of your wild proposals answered

    What if Bitcoin got adopted as the only way of paying for coffee?

  • Friday, 13 December, 2024
    Undercover EconomistBehavioural economics
    A kidney could be the perfect Christmas gift

    The emergence of kidney exchanges is an intriguing development 

    Mock up of a Christmas card, featuring a biological diagram of the human kidneys on the front
  • Friday, 29 November, 2024
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Keep vaccines out of politics

    This is a time for treating people as individuals rather than as members of a tribe

  • Friday, 22 November, 2024
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    High growth doesn’t tell the story of the US economy

    Impressive headline figures didn’t help the Democrats

  • Friday, 15 November, 2024
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    Why are governments so bad at problem solving?

    Politicians everywhere seem doomed to repeat their mistakes. There is another way

    Illustration of a laboratory flask filled with green liquid, showing various people partially submerged or floating, with one individual near the top reaching out
  • Friday, 8 November, 2024
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    What can we learn from fraud and folly?

    A new starting point for economic analysis

  • Saturday, 2 November, 2024
    FT Magazine
    Tim Harford’s epic, 40-year Dungeons & Dragons odyssey

    How the world’s most influential roleplaying game changed my life and millions of others’

  • Friday, 1 November, 2024
    Undercover EconomistLife & Arts
    ‘Known unknowns’, or how to plug the gaps in public research

    Medical research has benefited greatly from systematic reviews but in other fields the picture is less rosy

  • Friday, 25 October, 2024
    Undercover EconomistManaging yourself
    How to give a good speech

    Before you begin, what is it that you really want to say?

    A trash bin with four microphones in front of it stands as a podium on a wooden stage, set against a dark blue curtain background, giving the impression of a satirical press event
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