Appointment of Professor Jo Swaffield and Dr Brian Bell to the MAC
Professor Jo Swaffield and Dr Brian Bell have been appointed as members of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) for 3 years from 6 February 2018.
Their appointments follow a rigorous recruitment process that was regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
The Chair of the MAC, Professor Alan Manning said:
Jo and Brian bring a wealth of expertise and experience and I am delighted to welcome them as members of the Migration Advisory Committee.
Jo Swaffield
A Professor of Economics and Head of Department at the University of York, Professor Swaffield is an applied micro labour economist with strong research expertise in the UK labour market and a track record of providing quality research evidence to government. Her main research fields are in labour economics and applied micro-econometrics, focusing on issues such as the gender wage gap, low wages (including minimum wages and the Living Wage), and also employment (particularly in terms of working hours).
Professor Swaffield’s research has been published in leading economics journals and gained external funding from prestigious funders. She has delivered a number of commissioned research reports that have formed part of the evidence base for the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations on the UK’s National Minimum Wage.
Brian Bell
Dr Bell has been a Senior Lecturer, King’s Business School, within Kings College London since January 2017, following four years as an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Oxford University. Dr Bell is a world leading labour economist who is widely published, and his work on immigration has included papers examining the progress of immigrants in the labour market in the UK, and the impact of immigration on crime in the UK.
Dr Bell has worked extensively outside academia, including at the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund.