'The political economy of regional planning: challenges and opportunities” -Adam Yousef,

Date: 12 November 2025
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker:  Adam Yousef,
Talk Title: 'The political economy of regional planning: challenges and opportunities”
Location: Ramsden room, St Catharine's College

The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Political Economy Society and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

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Talk Overview:
From heightened geopolitical uncertainty to an increasingly difficult fiscal and monetary policy environment, the UK government finds itself navigating multiple challenges simultaneously to achieve its principal economic mission of greater growth and sustained prosperity. Considerable obstacles to realising this mission include regional inequities and spatial disparities that beset the UK’s economic landscape. In this presentation, Adam Yousef, Head of Economics at the Greater London Authority, will reflect on his role leading the design and delivery of London’s Growth Plan while reflecting on his experience engaging multiple tiers of government to ensure a harmonised approach to regional and national economic development.

Speaker Overview:
Adam is currently Head of Economics at the Greater London Authority (GLA). He joined the GLA after over a decade of experience as a senior economist, senior policy adviser and senior public servant in the UK, Canada, and Europe. In his current role, Adam heads the delivery of evidence-based reporting and analysis to better inform the Mayor of London’s economic and social programmes, plays a leading role in the design, delivery and implementation of policies pertaining to London’s economic growth and development, and leads the Authority’s engagement effort with a broad range of stakeholders such as central government, boroughs, governmental agencies, and private industry. He is also a member of the Strategy Board of Chief Economists and Heads of Profession at the UK’s Government Economic Service.
Prior to this role, he led the macroeconomic modelling team of the Government in Canada, where he oversaw the design and delivery of COVID-19 recovery policies for the Province of Ontario and its municipalities, designed the government’s flagship Childcare Tax Credit for low-to-middle income Canadian households, the Low-Income Families Tax Credit, and led the effort to simplify and broaden the income tax base. He also worked as an economic adviser to the European Commission as part of his PhD, where he helped incentivise reform to the EU’s deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with partner countries in the Southern Mediterranean in order to better promote growth and prosperity in the EU’s neighbourhood region under its European Neighbourhood Policy initiative. He is also a member of the Advisory Panel for the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations.
Adam holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Cambridge, a Masters in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Bachelors degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.