Jón Daníelsson

Jón Daníelsson is director of Systemic Risk Centre and Reader of Finance at the London School of Economics. He has also worked for the Bank of Japan and the International Monetary Fund.

Since receiving his PhD in the economics of financial markets from Duke University in 1991, Jón’s work has focused on how economic policy can lead to prosperity or disaster. He is an authority on both the technical aspects of risk forecasting and the optimal policies that governments and regulators should pursue in this area.

Jón has written three highly regarded books: The Illusion of Control (Yale University Press, 2022), which was included on the Financial Times “Best books of 2022” list; Financial Risk Forecasting (Wiley, 2011); and Global Financial Systems: Stability and Risk (Pearson, 2013). He has also contributed numerous academic papers on systemic risk, artificial intelligence, financial risk forecasting, financial regulation and related topics to leading academic journals, including the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Econometrics.

At the LSE he teaches courses in technical risk forecasting and on how the global financial system operates.

His practical and authoritative perspective on financial risk and the financial system means he is regularly interviewed by media organisations including the BBC, Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

He has done a few podcasts on The Illusion of Control, latest with Vox talks.

The launch of the book The Illusion of Control took place in LSE in November 2022 and was recorded for YouTube.