Born in 1940, and educated at the Doon School, Dehra Dun, St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and Jesus College, Oxford, he has been a member of the Indian Foreign Service (1963-66), Lecturer, Jesus College, Oxford, and Christ Church, Oxford (1966-68), Research Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford (1968-70), Lecturer and Reader in Political Economy, University College, London (1970-84) and -Professor of Political Economy, University of London (1984-93). He, was a full-time consultant to the Indian Planning Commission (1973-74), a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, 1978, and has served as a consultant to the ILO, UNCTAD, OECD, UNIDO, the World Bank, and the ministries of planning in Korea and Sri Lanka.  During 1983-84 he was an Economic Advisor to the World Bank, and then Research Administrator (1984-87), on leave from University College, London. He has been co-director of the Trade Policy Unit at the Center for Policy Studies (1994-97) and the Chairman of the board of advisors for the Nestle Lecture on the developing world (1994-98).

Professor Lal is the author of numerous articles and books on economic development and public policy including: Methods of Project Analysis (1974); Men and Machines (1978); Prices for Planning(1980); The Poverty of 'Development Economics' (1983, 1997); (with P. Collier) Labour and Poverty in Kenya (1986); The Hindu Equilibrium  (2 vols, 1988, 1989); (with H. Myint) The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity and Growth (1996) and most recently his Ohlin lectures, Unintended Consequences (1998). Three collections of his essays have recently been published: The Repressed Economy (1993), Against Dirigisme (1994) and Unfinished Business (1999).
 

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