Steven Fries

Steven Fries, nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute from March 2022 to September 2025, is a senior associate fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and a member of the UK Climate Change Committee.

His current research focuses on the economics of transforming energy systems, energy reforms to accelerate change, and sustainable finance for investments in low-carbon alternatives to traditional technologies and fossil fuels. He is author of Transforming Energy Systems: Economics, Policies and Change (Elgar 2021). He also led the economic analysis that underpinned pioneering energy and climate reforms in the United Kingdom and that helped pivot Shell's strategy toward low-carbon alternatives. In addition, he has published widely on enterprise and financial reforms in Eastern Europe's post-communist transition.

He was group chief economist at Shell (2006–11; 2016–21) and director of analysis and chief economist at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (2011–16). He also previously served in a series of senior roles at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1993–2006), including acting chief economist, deputy chief economist and director of research. He began his career as an economist at the International Monetary Fund.

He earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and an MPhil and DPhil in economics from the University of Oxford.