Vines is currently a Professor of Economics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Balliol College and is the Director of the Centre for International Macroeconomics at Oxford.
He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis at the Australian National University, a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London and Scientific Coordinator of the European Union Framework Seven PEGGED Research Programme on the Politics and Economics of Global Governance: the European Dimension. From 1994 to 2000 he was the Director of the Research Programme on Global Economic Institutions of the Economic and Social Research Council.
He is a trustee of the Oxford Policy Institute. He formerly held the Adam Smith Chair of Political Economy at the University of Glasgow and in 2002 was a Houblon-Norman Senior Fellow at the Bank of England.
Vines was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne, and at Cambridge University.
At Cambridge, Vines worked with Nobel Prize-winning economist, James Meade, who was deeply influenced by John Maynard Keynes. Vines' work on macroeconomics reflects the influence of both of these men. His work spans international macroeconomics, the reform of international financial architecture and monetary economics.
Besides his tasks at university, he acts as Advisor to Fair Observer, an online magazine covering global issues from a plurality of perspectives.