He is also a commissioner on the National Infrastructure Commission, a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and the director of the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) at the LSE.

In 2018, he served as president of the Econometric Society, and from 2006 to 2009 he was an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.

Born in Lincolnshire,[1] Sir Tim Besley attended Aylesbury Grammar School and then studied at Oxford University, where he gained a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with First Class Honours from Keble College, winning the George Webb Medley Prize for best exam performance in his cohort for his second and third years.

In June 2021, he was appointed to the World Bank–International Monetary Fund High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth, co-chaired by Mari Pangestu, Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, and Nicholas Stern.

[2] Besley's research is focused on aspects of economic policy formation in developed and emerging market economies.