Beth Stratford is a political economist specialising in ecological macroeconomics, rentier power, housing and macro-financial policy.
As Senior Research Associate in Heterodox Economics and Finance for Net Zero at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), Beth is exploring alternative approaches to macroeconomic management, financing and investment that could support rapid decarbonisation across the housing, transport, energy and food sectors. The post is part of a UKRI-funded project led by Donal Brown.
Before joining ECI, Beth worked as a freelance economist, publishing influential research on the scale of landlord profits and the case for rent controls, including Taking Back Control of Rents (for UCL and the New Economics Foundation), and The Property Premium (for the Autonomy Institute and Joseph Rowntree Foundation). This work builds on a longer record in housing policy development and advocacy. Beth wrote chapters 3 and 4 of Land for the Many, a landmark report for the Labour Party, proposing changes to the way land is used and governed in the UK. More recently, she helped to establish the Homes That Don't Cost the Earth project, and co-authored its first report, Taking Stock – which explores how to meet housing needs within environmental limits and real resource constraints.
Beth’s PhD research examined the history of the concept of rent, and the relationship between rent, growth and ecological damage, identifying a 'rentier growth imperative' that pushes governments to pursue growth at the expense of environmental protection. Some of the policy implications of this thesis are set out her report The UK's Path to a Doughnut-Shaped Recovery (University of Leeds), and summarised in her widely shared article, Degrowth vs Green Growth: Are We Missing the Point?
Beth divides her time between Oxford and London, where she is an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL's Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). Outside of academia, Beth is proud to have helped to establish the London Renters Union, contributed to the Labour Party's Sustainable Economics Working Group, and volunteered as an advisor to Positive Money and The Social Guarantee.