Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge

Professor Gray is an internationally renowned scholar on the political economy of austerity, inequality, and labour. She is often called upon by policy makers, local government, public and private institutions for insights into the changing nature of contemporary capitalism and the local state. She publishes in top-tiered peer-reviewed journals, including award-winning papers on regional crises, inequality, and austerity.

Gray’s major research interests is the economic and political repercussions of austerity at different scales of government. Her research examines the intertwining of the economic, social and political effects on the local decisions around austerity, the shaping of the local state, contemporary issues around local financing of local authorities, and local-central state relations. These projects are grounded in the political economy of budget cuts and increasing demands for services, how the uneven distribution of power and local resources mediates these changes, and the institutional mechanisms which promote change in policy priorities in the UK, the US, and Canada.

Her work in austerity and fiscal issues around local government has led her to a research interest in debt. She has two edited collections on contemporary debt: Debt and Austerity, Debt and Austerity Implications of the Financial Crisis and Viral Debt, the Production and Reproduction of Economic Inequality.