Josh Ryan-Collins

Associate Director, Economy and Finance, New Economics Foundation

Josh conducts research on the impact of money and credit on the macroeconomy, two areas much neglected in mainstream economics. He is the lead author of nef's guide to the UK monetary system - Where does money come from? - which sets out in non-technical language how commercial banks dominate the creation and allocation of credit and money. He examines problems with the current model and researches alternatives, including public banks, credit guidance by central banks or governments, ‘sovereign money’ proposals (full-reserve banking) and decentralised complementary and peer-2-peer currency systems.

Josh joined nef in 2006 and has worked across a range of other projects.  Most recently, he has worked on the theory and practise of complementary or community currency systems, including the development of a  mobile- and web-enabled payment platform to enable them to upscale and be more widely accepted by local authorities and other social purpose institutions. He is involved in a pan-European project – CCIA - to evaluate the impact of a range of different complementary currency models. Josh has also previously worked and published on the economics of housing and land, theories of efficiency and value in the public sector, local economic development and regeneration, coproduction and timebanking.

Josh is a founding member and Director of the Brixton Pound, the UK’s first urban local currency, which was launched in South London in September 2009 and which became the first UK currency to enable payments via mobile phone in September 2011. He previously worked as a marketing consultant in the private sector, for the UK Cabinet Office in a Strategic Communications role and for an economic development consultancy. He studied sociology and Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick and is currently studying for a PhD in finance the University of Southampton in the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development where he is examining historical examples of public credit creation.