Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics
School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading
Earley Gate, Whiteknights Road, Reading RG6 6EU, United Kingdom
Contact me at:
a.swinbank@reading.ac.uk OR
a.swinbank@yahoo.co.uk
After school in North Manchester I worked as a farm labourer in Surrey for a year before university. I studied at the University of Reading (BSc Agricultural Economics), McMaster University (MA Economics), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD Economics, University of London) where the late Tim Josling was my PhD supervisor. I then worked for four years as a junior administrator for the Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, in DG VI (the Directorate-General for Agriculture). I returned to the University of Reading in 1977 as a lecturer in Agricultural Economics, and was appointed to the chair in Agricultural Economics in 1988. Although I ‘retired’ in 2008, I am still actively engaged in research. I am also available to undertake consultancy projects.
Current research preoccupations include:
- Exploring the UK’s agricultural and trade policy options following the country’s referendum vote to leave the EU (Brexit)
- CAP ‘reform’
- British perspectives on the GATT Article XXIV negotiations associated with the first EEC enlargement
- Understanding the influence of the GATT and the EEC on successive UK governments’ farm policy deliberations in the 1960s & 1970s
Last updated 10 June 2023