Speakers

Paul Collier, Oxford University

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University. During 1998-2003 he was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural-resources rich societies. In 2008 Paul was awarded a CBE 'for services to scholarship and development'.


Esther Duflo, MIT

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT and a founder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health and policy evaluation. Duflo studied at L'Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, received a master's degree from DELTA in Paris and completed a PhD in Economics at MIT in 1999.


William Easterly, New York University

William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute. He was Co-Editor of the Journal of Development Economics, is Research Associate of NBER, senior fellow BREAD and nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. He is the author of two books: The Elusive Quest for Growth (2001) and The White Man's Burden (2006), which won the FA Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute. He was named in 2008 and 2009 among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals by Foreign Policy Magazine.


Elisabeth Moyer, University of Chicago

Elisabeth Moyer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at University of Chicago and a co-director of the University of Chicago's Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy. She received her doctorate in Planetary Science from the California Institute of Technology in 2001. Her research interests include atmospheric water vapor and clouds, the primary sources of uncertainty in forecasts of future climate; climate response to greenhouse-gas forcing; climate impacts on human societies; and climate and energy policy evaluation.


Dani Rodrik, Harvard University

Dani Rodrik is the Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He has published widely in the areas of international economics, economic development, and political economy. His current research focuses on the economics of structural change and productivity growth and on the governance of globalization. He was awarded the inaugural Albert O. Hirschman Prize of the Social Science Research Council in 2007 and was editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics.


Jeffrey D. Sachs, Colombia University

Jeffrey D. Sachs serves as Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, as well as Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Health Policy and Management. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project.


Sir Nicholas Stern, London School of Economics

Nicholas Stern Lord Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the LSE and Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. He has taught and researched at Oxford, MIT and the Ecole Polytechnique and held chairs at Warwick and the College de France and visiting professorships at the People's University of China and the Indian Statistical Institute. He was Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and of the World Bank. Lord Stern was Head of the UK Government Economic Service 2003-7, and led the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. He was knighted for services to economics in 2004 and made a cross-bench life peer as Baron Stern of Brentford in 2007.


Hans-Werner Sinn, University of Munich

Hans-Werner Sinn is Professor of Economics and Public Finance at the University of Munich (LMU), President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Director of the University of Munich's Center for Economic Studies and Director of CESifo. He is a member of the Council of Economic Advisors to the German Ministry of Economics as well as former president of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF). Sinn is author of more than 20 monographs and 135 scientific articles.


Michael Greenstone, MIT

Michael Greenstone is the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as the Chief Economist for President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors in the first year of his Administration. Professor Greenstone is an expert on the welfare impacts of regulation, the costs and benefits of environmental quality, and the economics of climate change.


John Hassler, IIES

John Hassler is Professor of Economics at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University. His research covers areas in macroeconomics, political economy, climate economics, economic growth and public economics. In addition he is currently vice-chairman of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council. Hassler received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.