Ruth Towse FRSA is a British economist and Professor of Economics of Creative Industries at Bournemouth University and Professor Emerita at Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
A leading authority in cultural economics with a particular emphasis on the economics of media and copyright, she has taught in UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Thailand universities.
Towse obtained a BA (Hons) in Political Economy from Reading University in 1964, then proceeding to obtain a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1966.
She gained a PhD in Economics from Erasmus University, Rotterdam in 2000.
She has served as the President of the Association for Cultural Economics International from 2006 to 2008.