Awarding winning Professor of Economics offering expert A-level, undergraduate and postgraduate economics tuition

Find out more about Richard

• When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  I first fell in love with economics when I studied it at A-level. Rather wonderfully, I only chose it because I was not completely sure what else to take — and because my girlfriend at the time was studying it too. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.
  
  What appealed to me almost immediately was that economics gave me a way of thinking about the world. It was not just about money or business; it was about choices, trade-offs, incentives, constraints and the unintended consequences of decisions. Once I saw that, I was hooked.
  
  Tutoring also developed quite naturally. I began by dipping my toe in the water through tutoring websites, not really knowing where it would lead. Over time, it became a hugely important part of my teaching life. I enjoy meeting different students, understanding how they see the subject, and finding ways to make difficult ideas clearer and more useful to them.
  
  For me, tutoring is a way of broadening the reach of my teaching. It allows me to share the ideas of economics beyond the university classroom, while also learning from the students I work with. Every student brings a slightly different perspective, and that is one of the things I enjoy most.

• Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students, and possibly those you like a little less.

  Economics is often described as the study of money, markets or the economy, but I think it is much broader and more interesting than that. At its heart, economics is about how we make choices when resources are limited. Those resources might be money, labour, land, energy, skills, attention or, very often, time.
  
  One of the things I enjoy most about teaching economics is showing students that many economic ideas start from common sense. We cannot do everything at once; we face constraints; we have to make trade-offs; and sometimes valuable resources are underused. Economics gives us a language and a set of tools for thinking carefully about those problems.
  
  I particularly enjoy discussing topics where students can see the connection between theory and the real world. That might include why some countries remain poor while others become richer, how governments should respond to inflation or unemployment, why markets sometimes work well and sometimes fail, or how individuals and firms respond to incentives.
  
  I also enjoy the fact that economics can be optimistic. It is a subject built around problems, but also around solutions: how to use resources better, how to improve living standards, how to design better policies, and how to make better decisions. I like helping students see economics not simply as a set of diagrams or definitions, but as a way of thinking clearly about real-world challenges.
  
  The parts I like a little less are when economics is reduced to memorising diagrams or repeating phrases without understanding the ideas behind them. Diagrams, models and technical terms are useful, but only when students understand the intuition. My aim is always to bring the subject back to the underlying logic: what is the problem, what are the constraints, what choices are available, and what are the likely consequences?

• Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  My A-level Economics teacher, Mr Hodgson, was a very important role model for me. He helped make economics feel interesting, accessible and connected to the real world. Given that A-level Economics was where I first properly fell in love with the subject, his teaching clearly had a lasting influence on me.
  
  More broadly, though, I think one of the most empowering things about learning is that role models are not limited to formal education. We learn from people all the time: teachers, colleagues, students, family, friends, writers, researchers and people who simply make us see something differently.
  
  The people I admire most are those who are reflective and inquisitive. They do not simply accept the world as it appears; they ask questions, examine assumptions and try to understand things more deeply. That is very close to what I enjoy about economics as a subject. Economics encourages us to ask why choices are made, what constraints people face, what incentives are at work, and what consequences might follow.
  
  So while Mr Hodgson was my clearest educational role model, I also try to learn from anyone who approaches the world with curiosity, humility and a desire to understand. I think good teaching is partly about passing that on: helping students not only learn a subject, but become more thoughtful and confident in the way they think.

• What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  A good tutor needs strong subject knowledge, but that is only the starting point. The real skill is being able to understand where a student is, what they are finding difficult, what motivates them, and how they see the subject.
  
  For me, tutoring works best when it is a shared experience. The student is not simply a passive recipient of information; they are a partner in the learning process. A good tutor listens carefully, asks the right questions, and frames ideas from the student’s perspective rather than just delivering a pre-prepared explanation.
  
  This is especially important in economics because the subject is connected to so much of everyday life. Economics is about choices, constraints, incentives and trade-offs. Almost everything we do involves some form of decision-making under constraints, whether that constraint is money, time, information, energy or opportunity. That means there is nearly always some part of the student’s own experience that can be used to make an economic idea clearer.
  
  A good tutor should therefore be patient, clear and adaptable. They need to be able to explain the same idea in different ways, build confidence without lowering expectations, and help students see not only what the answer is, but why it makes sense.
  
  Ultimately, I think the best tutors help students become more independent. The aim is not just to get through a topic or prepare for one exam, but to help the student develop a deeper understanding and a more confident way of thinking.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  One anecdote that has stayed with me comes from my own A-levels. Mr Hodgson used to tell us that, throughout our exam answers, we should keep writing “this is because…”. At the time, I found this slightly frustrating. It felt repetitive, a bit clumsy, and not particularly elegant as a piece of writing.
  
  What I did not fully appreciate then was that he was trying to teach us one of the most important skills in economics: building a clear chain of reasoning. Economics is not usually about simply stating that something happens; it is about explaining why it happens. If interest rates rise, why might spending fall? If costs increase, why might prices rise? If a government invests in education, why might productivity improve over time? The marks often come from showing the mechanism: one thing leads to another, which leads to another.
  
  I remember applying that advice much more directly in my AS Economics exam than in my Business Studies exam. In Economics, I explained the chains of reasoning clearly and achieved a very high mark. In Business Studies, where I did not apply the same approach, I did far less well. That contrast helped me understand that the advice was not just an exam trick; it was about learning how to analyse.
  
  It also taught me something important about teaching. It is not enough to tell students what to do. You have to explain why it matters. If students understand the purpose behind a technique, they are much more likely to use it properly and adapt it for themselves. That is something I try to do in my own tutoring: not just give students strategies, but help them understand the logic behind those strategies.

• What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still face in your subject?

  One of the main challenges in economics is that the subject is both very familiar and quite unfamiliar at the same time.
  
  On one hand, economics is about things we experience every day: choices, constraints, trade-offs, incentives and the allocation of limited resources. Whenever we decide how to spend our time, money or energy, we are making an economic decision. In that sense, economics should feel very close to ordinary life.
  
  On the other hand, economics often appears distant or abstract because we use models, diagrams, equations and technical language to describe those everyday decisions. For many students, the difficulty is not that the ideas are impossible, but that the academic way of presenting them can make them feel more remote than they really are.
  
  I think one of the key challenges — and one of the most rewarding parts of teaching — is helping students bridge that gap. The models are not there to make the subject obscure; they are there to help us simplify the world, isolate the important forces, and think carefully about what might happen if something changes. They allow us to “play with” ideas in a disciplined way.
  
  The world being modelled is still the world we all live in. Once students see that, economics becomes much less intimidating. The challenge is to connect the formal theory back to lived experience: why people respond to incentives, why firms face trade-offs, why governments have to prioritise, and why societies have to decide how best to use scarce resources.
  
  So, for me, the ongoing challenge in economics is also its appeal: taking something we all experience and giving students the tools to think about it more clearly, more systematically and more critically.

• Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  Economics is genuinely one of my passions. That may sound slightly geeky, but I do feel very fortunate to work in a subject that I find so interesting. I like economics because it gives us a way of thinking about almost everything: choices, constraints, trade-offs, incentives, unintended consequences and how we make the best use of limited resources.
  
  A slightly unexpected passion of mine is Harry Potter. I have read and listened to the books many times, and I often find myself using examples from them when speaking to students or at university open days.
  
  One scene I particularly like is in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, where the Muggle Prime Minister is struggling to understand why a situation is so difficult when the magical world has magic. The reply, in essence, is that the other side has magic too. I have always thought that is a wonderfully economic idea.
  
  Economics is often about constraints. It reminds us that even when we have powerful tools, resources or advantages, we still face trade-offs. Other people, firms, countries or governments may also have tools of their own. There are very few genuine free lunches, and most interesting economic questions come from asking how people make decisions when they cannot have everything.
  
  That is one of the things I enjoy most about teaching economics: taking examples from literature, politics, business, sport, film or everyday life and showing that economic ideas are already there. The subject becomes much more engaging when students realise it is not just something in a textbook, but a way of thinking about the world they already know.

• What makes you a Superprof, besides answering these interview questions?

  I find this question slightly difficult to answer, because I am not naturally very comfortable with self-promotion. But I suppose what makes me a “Superprof” is the combination of formal teaching experience, subject expertise and a genuine enjoyment of working with students.
  
  On the formal side, I am a Professor of Economics at a UK university, have taught in higher education for over 12 years, and have tutored for more than 20 years. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have been fortunate to receive a number of teaching awards, including student-led awards, a University Teaching Fellowship Award for Innovation and a University Teaching Excellence Award for Academic Teaching.
  
  But the part that means most to me is not the title or the awards. It is the relationships I have built with students over time. I am still in touch with many people I have tutored, and that is one of the most rewarding parts of the work. Tutoring gives you the chance to see students grow in confidence, change the way they think about a subject, and sometimes achieve things they did not initially think were possible.
  
  I think my strength as a tutor is that I combine high-level academic experience with a warm, practical and supportive approach. I can help students with complex economics, data, essays, exams and dissertations, but I always try to begin with the student: what they understand, what they find difficult, what motivates them, and what they want to achieve.
  
  For me, good tutoring is not just about explaining a topic. It is about helping students become more confident, more independent and more able to think clearly for themselves.