Alan Freeman was principal economist of the Living Wage unit at the Greater London Authority's Economic Analysis Unit from 2001 to 2011. Alan is now a retired but research-active cultural economist. He currently writes and advises on cultural policy, is visiting fellow at the Department of City Planning, University of Manitoba, research fellow at Queensland University of Technology, and visiting professor at London Metropolitan University. He has published 98 articles on economics and politics and co-edited four books.

He is co-editor, with Radhika Desai, of two book series: 'Geopolitical Economy' at Manchester University Press, and of 'the Future of World Capitalism', with Pluto Books. He is a vice-chair of the World Association for Political Economy. He is one of the 'small club' of economists who predicted the crash of 2008, and in 2008 also predicted that the economic crisis would not leave the industrialised countries until and unless these countries undertook public investment on the scale associated with US government spending during World War II (about 55% of GDP). His Higher Education qualifications are in Mathematics, Computing, and Economics His professional career includes 15 years as a programmer, 13 as a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Greenwich, and 10 years as a civil servant at the GLA.