Overview
James Banks is a professor of economics at the University of Manchester and a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). His research focuses on household finance, aging, health and socioeconomic disparities, and the economics of disability. He co-directed the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and has produced foundational cross-national comparisons of health, wealth, and retirement between the U.S. and England.
Key Contributions / Features
- Co-author of Banks, Marmot, Oldfield, and Smith (2006, JAMA): demonstrated US adults are dramatically less healthy than English counterparts at every SES level, confirmed by biological markers
- Co-author Banks, Blundell, and Emmerson (2015): compared disability benefit reform trajectories in the UK and US, showing divergent paths driven by different reform sequences
- Co-author Banks, Blundell, and Smith (2003): documented US–UK household financial wealth differences
- Co-director of ELSA, the English panel analogue to the U.S. Health and Retirement Study
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