Congratulations to Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) associates Professor Vernon Henderson and Professor Barbara Petrongolo, who have been elected as new Fellows of the British Academy.

They are among 84 new Fellows of the British Academy who have been elected in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the SHAPE (social sciences, humanities and the arts) subjects.

Baroness Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), has also been elected as an honorary fellow.

Professor Henderson, an associate of CEP’s urban programme, is a school professor of economic geography at the LSE. His research focuses on urbanisation in developing countries and he is a founder and past president of the Urban Economics Association.

Professor Petrongolo, an associate of CEP’s labour markets programme, is professor of economics at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow at Nuffield College. She has worked extensively on the performance of labour markets with job search frictions and her work also researches the causes of gender inequalities in labour market outcomes.

Professor Julia Black, president of the British Academy, said: “The need for SHAPE subjects has never been greater. As Britain recovers from the pandemic and seeks to build back better, the insights from our diverse disciplines will be vital to ensure the health, wellbeing and prosperity of the UK and will continue to provide the cultural and societal enrichment that has sustained us over the last eighteen months. Our new Fellows embody the value of their subjects and I congratulate them warmly for their achievement.”