Speaker Biographies

June 28, 2005

George B.N. Ayittey, a native of Ghana, is a Distinguished Economist at American University and President of the Free Africa Foundation, both in Washington, D.C. He was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in 1988 and has published four books on Africa: Indigenous African Institutions (Transnational Publishers, 1991); Africa Betrayed (St. Martin’s Press, 1992); The Blueprint For Ghana’s Economic Recovery (Africana Publishers, 1997); and Africa In Chaos (St. Martin’s Press, 1998). Africa Betrayed won the 1993 H.L. Mencken Award for “Best Book for 1992.” His new book, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future, was published in January 2005. He has written numerous articles on Africa and the Third World, which have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail (Canada), The Times of London, USA Today, the Cato Journal, World Development, Humane Studies Review, Journal of Defense and Diplomacy, Journal of Economic Affairs, Journal of Economic Growth, The World & I, Crisis, and Foreign Trade Review. He has also appeared on several radio talk shows and TV programs, including CBS’s Nightwatch, ABC’s Nightline, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, C-SPAN, and CNN Crossfire with Rev. Jesse Jackson. He has testified several times before congressional committees about foreign aid to Africa, apartheid in South Africa, the World Bank, and debt forgiveness. He has served as a consultant to several organizations, including the World Bank, USAID, and the International Council on Metals and the Environment (ICME).

Claude E. Barfield is a resident scholar and the director of science and technology policy studies at AEI. He is the author or editor of a number of books on trade and science policy, including Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization (AEI Press, 2001). In 1999, he coauthored Tiger by the Tail: China and the World Trade Organization (AEI Press) with Mark Groombridge. Before coming to AEI, he served in the Ford administration on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and as a co-staff director of the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.

Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI. Before coming to AEI, he was director of the International Policy Network from 2001 to 2003, director of the Environmental Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1993 to 2003, and director of the European Science and Environment Forum from 1995 to 2001. Mr. Bate researches water policy in developing countries; health policy and endemic diseases in developing countries, focusing particularly on AIDS and malaria; international environmental and health agreements, specifically concerning industrial chemicals, climate change, and water; the role of aid agencies and NGOs in developing countries; and genetically modified organisms and pesticide policy in developing countries. He has written numerous articles and opinion pieces, as well as several books, including Saving Our Streams: The Role of the Anglers Conservation Association in Preventing Pollution in English and Welsh Rivers (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2001); Malaria and the DDT Story (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2001); and Life’s Adventure: Virtual Risk in a Real World (Butterworth Heinemann, 2000).

Ariel Buira is director of the G-24 Secretariat. He served as special envoy of the president of Mexico for the UN Conference on Financing for Development from October 2001 to March 2002. He has been a senior member at St. Antony’s College at Oxford University and has served as ambassador of Mexico to Greece from 1998 to 2001. He served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Bank of Mexico from 1994 to 1996 and was chairman of the Board of Directors of BLADEX (Latin American Export Bank) from 1985 to 1994. He was the director for international organizations and agreements for the Bank of Mexico from 1985 to 1993, and served as both executive director (1980–82) and alternate executive director (1978–80) of the International Monetary Fund. For the G-24, he edited Challenges to the World Bank and IMF and The IMF and the World Bank at Sixty (Anthem Press, 2003 and 2005).

James K. Glassman is a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in issues involving economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and co-founder of TechCentralStation.com, a for-profit website, started in February 2000, which concentrates on matters of technology and public policy. In September 2004, Mr. Glassman launched a new organization, Investors Action, for which he serves as chairman. Investors Action aims to educate America’s 90 million investors and represent their interests in the public-policy arena. Mr. Glassman also writes a weekly op-ed column on economic and political topics for the Scripps Howard News Service, and a monthly column on investing for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. His most recent book, The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown, 2002) was named one of the top ten investing books of 2002 by Barron’s. Between July 1993 and July 2004, Mr. Glassman wrote an internationally syndicated weekly column on investing for the Washington Post. From 1987 to 1993, he was editor and part-owner of Roll Call, the twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Prior to that, he had a long career in magazine publishing—as president of the Atlantic Monthly, executive vice president of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of the New Republic. In 1972, he started Figaro, a New Orleans weekly newspaper, which he sold in 1979. He served as executive editor of the Washingtonian magazine from 1979 to 1981.

Adam Lerrick is the Friends of Allan H. Meltzer Professor of Economics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the University’s Gailliot Center for Public Policy. He is also a visiting scholar at AEI. He originated and leads the negotiation team of the Argentine Bond Restructuring Agency plc (ABRA). ABRA unites the interests of an estimated 30,000 European retail investors to create the largest foreign creditor in the $100 billion Argentina debt restructuring. Since 2001, Mr. Lerrick has served as advisor on international economic policy to the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress of the United States. He was separately an advisor on international economic policy to the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress from April 2001 to January 2003. He acted as the senior advisor to the chairman of the International Financial Institution Advisory (“Meltzer”) Commission of the U.S. government. Formerly head of product development for the international capital markets at Salomon Brothers and then at Credit Suisse First Boston, Mr. Lerrick found solutions to the large scale financing needs of major governments and multilateral borrowers. In the international capital markets, he designed and executed pioneering debt instruments for many governments, among them, Germany, France, Belgium, and Sweden. Mr. Lerrick has written, testified before Congress, and spoken widely on questions of development aid, debt relief, financial markets, sovereign debt crises and the international financial system. His commentaries have been published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Canada’s National Post, and his views have aired on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, National Public Radio, Bloomberg Television, and PBS’s For the Record. Academic publications have appeared in the Journal of Monetary Economics and the Journal of Restructuring Finance. He has been a featured speaker at conferences organized by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Emerging Markets Creditors Association.

Johannes Linn has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution since September 2003, where he has been engaged in research and advisory work on global governance, transition issues in Central and South-East Europe, the CIS and Turkey, transatlantic relations, and cultural heritage preservation. Beginning on July 1, 2005, he will serve as executive director for the new Wolfensohn Initiative on action-oriented development research at Brookings. Prior to joining the Brookings Institution, Mr. Linn worked for the World Bank, which he joined in 1973. For nine years he worked in the Bank’s research wing on issues of urban development policy. Based on his research, he published various articles on urban development and urban public finance, and also two books: Cities in Developing World: Policies for Their Equitable and Efficient Growth (Oxford University Press, 1983) and (with Roy Bahl) Urban Public Finance in Developing Countries (Oxford University Press, 1992). In 1978, he spent six months at the University of Munster, Germany, as a visiting researcher. Subsequently he served as country economist and economic advisor in the Bank’s East Asia regional staff. Between 1988 and 1991, he served as senior economic advisor in the Bank’s development economics staff, as the director of its International Economics Department, and as director of its Country Economics Department. In 1991, Mr. Linn was appointed the World Bank’s vice president for financial policy and resource mobilization. In that capacity, he was in charge of overall financial policies and prudential management of the World Bank (IBRD and IDA) and in charge of mobilizing capital resources for IBRD and donor resources for IDA and for the Global Environment Facility (GEF). From January 1996 through September 2003, Mr. Linn held the position of the Bank’s vice president for Europe and Central Asia (ECA). He was responsible for all operational work in the region, including the management of about 1,000 staff, annual new lending of $3-5 billion, extensive advisory work, and participation in the Bank’s senior management councils. A collection of his speeches were published under the title, Transition Years—Reflections on Economic Reform and Social Change in Europe and Central Asia (World Bank, 2004).

Sarath Rajapatirana is a visiting scholar at AEI. He joined AEI after a long stint at the World Bank, where he was an adviser on operations policy, division chief for trade and industry in Latin America, director of the World Development Report, and director of the Developing Countries Macroeconomic Policies Comparative Study. Before joining the World Bank, he was at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka where he was the head of money and banking research. His publications include six books on trade, macroeconomics, and finance; a pamphlet on trade policies of developing countries; and various journal articles.

Vance Serchuk is a research fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, where he studies international organizations and the overlap between U.S. strategic interests and economic development policy. Previously, he was a research associate at AEI, coordinating its defense and security policy program. Before joining AEI, Mr. Serchuk was a Fulbright scholar in the Russian Federation. His writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, The Forward, and other publications.

John B. Taylor recently returned to Stanford University, where he is the Roberts Professor of Economics and the McCoy Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2001 to 2005, he served as Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury, where he led in the development and implementation of policies in international finance, currencies, debt, and trade in financial services. Mr. Taylor coordinated financial policy within the G-7/G-8, attending a total of seventeen G-7/G-8 finance ministers/central bank governors meetings during this period. He oversaw U.S. participation in the IMF, the World Bank, and the other development banks. He was chair of Working Party Three on international macroeconomics at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As under secretary, Mr. Taylor made approximately 120 visits to foreign countries. He was awarded the Medal of the Republic of Uruguay for his work in resolving the 2002 financial crisis, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award for his work on the new currency plan in Iraq, and the Alexander Hamilton Award for his overall service in international finance. Mr. Taylor’s government experience also includes being senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in 1976–77; member of the CEA in 1989–91; and member of the California Governor’s CEA in 1996–98. Mr. Taylor’s academic work is represented by over 150 research papers and books, with his work on monetary theory and policy being most widely cited. In 1992 he received the Hoagland Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In 1997 he received the Rhodes Prize for high teaching ratings in the Stanford introductory economics course. Previously, Mr. Taylor was a professor of economics at Princeton and Columbia Universities. Mr. Taylor has also served as director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; director of the Stanford Introductory Economics Center; and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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