James Vitali
Head of Political Economy
Dr James Vitali is Head of Political Economy at Policy Exchange and leads on the organisation’s economic and regulatory reform research. He joined the team in 2022 after completing a PhD in Politics at Cambridge University. He was the JH Plumb Scholar at Christ’s College and taught undergraduates in the History of Political Thought. He also served as President of the Cambridge Union. Prior to his time in Cambridge, he worked for a Minister of State in Parliament.
During his time at Policy Exchange, James has authored a number of influential reports on housing, economics and regulatory reform. The Property Owning Democracy, released in December 2023, won support from across Parliament, including from four serving or former cabinet ministers.
James is an inaugural Civic Future Fellow, and serves as Director of the Conservative History Group.
Related Publications
The Rise of the Regulators
Download Publication Online Reader With both the Prime Minister and Chancellor promising to tackle the red tape holding the UK economy back, Policy Exchange publishes its latest intervention on regulatory reform. The Rise of the Regulators, authored by Head of Political Economy James Vitali and Research Fellow Zachary Marsh, and with a foreword from former Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, is the latest report in Policy Exchange’s Re-engineering Regulation programme. The […]
Driving Growth
Download Publication Online Reader The new Government has stated that its highest priority is economic growth. There are few measures that would give an immediate, large boost to economic performance. Introducing a full system of road pricing, where motorists pay according to the distance, time and place they travel, is one such measure. As it stands, congestion on UK roads is costing the economy between 1.4% and 2.5% of GDP every […]
Growing Pension Capital
Download Publication Following the Chancellor’s recent announcement that the new Labour Government would actively look at pension market reform, Policy Exchange has published a new paper setting out what might be learnt from the Australia’s superannuation model. Growing Pension Capital – co-authored by Chris Mahon and Policy Exchange’s Head of Political Economy James Vitali – argues that the UK regulatory framework for pensions was designed for an era of defined […]
The Sofa Voter
Download Publication Download Polling In the immediate aftermath of the General Election, Policy Exchange commissioned exclusive polling on perhaps the most poorly understood voter group in the country: the stay-at-home voter. Four million more people opted not to cast a ballot this year than in 2019. These results are concerning and indicate a growing cohort of people who are thoroughly disenchanted with democratic politics in this country. But […]
The UK's Broken Housing Market
As the new Labour Government takes up office, Policy Exchange’s new report, ‘The UK’s Broken Housing Market: Causes, Consequences, and Cures’, sets out the need for urgent reform to the housing market. The report authors argue that: The highest priority for the new Government must be housing and planning. The UK is experiencing a crisis of housing affordability, both in the purchase price of a homes and in the private […]
Economic Transformation: Lessons From History
Download Publication Online Reader The subject we address in the first paper in the Policy Programme for Prosperity series is the international evidence on how countries can achieve an economic transformation. We all know that economic transformation is difficult. Indeed, there is widespread pessimism about British governments ever being able to achieve anything at all. Yet there are a number of examples of countries being able to deliver just this. These cases […]
The Property Owning Democracy
Download Publication Online Reader This paper is concerned with one of the most elemental structural features of British society: who owns it? Since classical antiquity, thinkers have recognised an intimate connection between the ownership of private property and the vitality of a political order. Ownership gives people self-sufficiency, independence, and a sense of stake in their community, both local and national. It is a spur for enterprise, a driver of […]
More Help to Grow
Download Publication Online Reader More Help to Grow offers an analysis of the Government’s ‘Help to Grow: Management Scheme’, introduced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak whilst he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The programme is designed to upskill business leaders in the SME sector, and to provide them with the tools they need to expand and improve their companies. It has received strong positive feedback from the businesses who have […]
Re-Engineering Regulation
Download Publication Regulations are an indispensable part of social and economic life. They constitute the “rules of the game” by which companies, public bodies and consumers interact with one another. When working well, they institute important protections for individuals, ensure a level playing field within markets, and incentivise activity and innovation that will benefit society as a whole. Yet in numerous sectors, the existing regulatory framework is blighting the […]
Homes for Growth
Download Publication Online Reader The economics of the UK housing market are highly dysfunctional. For decades, demand for housing, through population expansion and changes to the nature of households, has consistently outstripped the supply of new homes, and this has translated into vastly inflated prices across the UK. In an effective market, supply is responsive to demand, and this has a balancing effect on prices. When it comes […]Related Blogs
Reeves’ Mansion House speech: a new approach to funding UK investment?
Much of the noise around the recent Budget has centred on those subjects with emotional resonance with the public: painful tax rises for employers (and, as it will undoubtedly be passed on to them, employees); devastating changes around agricultural property relief; higher inflation. But in her Mansion House speech last week, the Chancellor had an opportunity to return to her key policy priority for the coming years: that is, driving […]
Keynote speech by Governor Michelle W. Bowman
Policy divergence was the theme of Michelle Bowman’s remarks at Policy Exchange this week. Following the pandemic, most major economies had largely comparable experiences of inflation, given similar supply shocks and interventions to support demand. But Bowman, a Governor of the Federal Reserve and former Kansas Banking Commissioner, was clear in her assessment that the macroeconomic policies of the United States and of advanced economies in Europe, particularly the UK, […]
Why Policy Exchange has a Head of Political Economy
Why does Policy Exchange need a Head of Political Economy? Political economy and economics are often treated as synonyms. But there are some important differences between the two, and recognising them can greatly enrich the way we frame both the challenges facing our country, and how best to solve them. Of course historically, political economy predates economics as a discipline. Alfred Marshall became Cambridge University’s first professor of economics in […]