Speaker Biographies

Colin I. Bradford is a nonresident senior fellow of global economy and development at the Brookings Institution. He was previously a research professor of economics and international relations and distinguished economist in residence at American University. He holds a joint appointment between the Department of Economics and the School for International Service. Mr. Bradford is the convener of a group of American University faculty and distinguished international economists who discuss and undertake research on “Globalization in Crisis: An Action Agenda for Global Human Security and Sustainability.” Between 1994 and 1998, Mr. Bradford was chief economist of the United States Agency for International Development, where he was a presidential appointee in the Clinton administration. From 1990 to 1994, Mr. Bradford was head of research at the Development Centre of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Prior to serving with the OECD, he was the senior staff member in charge of the international economic outlook work of the Strategic Planning Division of the World Bank. He is author and editor of several publications, including The New Paradigm of Systemic Competitiveness: Toward More Integrated Policies in Latin America (OECD, 1994) and numerous articles on the East Asia trade and development experience.

Dennis de Tray joined the Center for Global Development in February 2006 as the center’s first vice president. His first job was as a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica working on U.S. welfare issues, but also spent two years at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in Islamabad understanding and promoting economic development in low income countries. He left RAND in 1983 to join the World Bank as chief of its Living Standards Measurement program. The survey methodology developed under de Tray’s guidance remains the standard for poverty measurement in the World Bank and in a number of other international organizations. Following time spent as administrator for the World Bank’s centrally funded research program, de Tray moved to the Latin American operations complex, where he was responsible for programs in Bolivia, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. In 1994 he accepted the first of what was to become a series of overseas assignments with the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Over the course of twelve years he was director, resident staff, and then country director in Jakarta, Indonesia (five years), senior representative for the IMF in Hanoi, Vietnam (two years), and country director for the five Central Asian Republics (four years). His own work focuses on issues of corruption and governance, institution-building in weak and fragile states, and increasing the effectiveness of the multilateral system of development assistance.

William Easterly is professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a nonresident fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. He spent sixteen years as a research economist at the World Bank. He is the author of The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin, 2006), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT Press, 2001), coeditor of three books, and author of fifty-four articles in prominent economics journals. His work has been discussed in media outlets like The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, National Public Radio, BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Economist, The New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week, Financial Times, the Times of London, Guardian, and the Christian Science Monitor. Easterly’s areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in most areas of the developing world, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia. Easterly is an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Growth, and Journal of Development Economics.

Rep. Mark Kirk represents the Tenth Congressional District of Illinois located in the suburbs north of Chicago. Now in his fourth term, Rep. Kirk is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and serves on two of its subcommittees: State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs; and Financial Services. He is co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, the caucus of mainstream Republican members of Congress. In that capacity, Mr. Kirk works to advance a suburban agenda that is pro-defense, pro–personal responsibility, pro-environment, and pro-science. Congressman Kirk wrote a number of provisions which became law, including funding for commuter rail, improving veterans’ health care, ensuring military voting, and boosting aviation security. Congressional Quarterly named Rep. Kirk as one of the “28 Emerging Leaders in Congress.” Kirk began his career on the staff of his predecessor, Rep. John Porter. He later served in the World Bank, at the State Department, at the law firm of Baker & McKenzie, and on the U.S. House International Relations Committee. Rep. Kirk is a Naval Reserve intelligence officer who served during conflicts with Iraq, Haiti, and Bosnia. He served four tours at sea and three in Panama. The U.S. Navy named Kirk “Intelligence Officer of the Year” in 1999 for his combat service in Kosovo. Kirk flew on missions over Iraq and continues to serve one weekend a month in the Pentagon. Kirk is the only member of Congress to serve stateside during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was an air crewman over Iraq during Operation Northern Watch.

Desmond Lachman is a resident fellow at AEI whose research focuses on global currencies, major emerging market economies, and the role of the multilateral lending institutions. He writes extensively on topics such as economic policy, fund arrangements, monetary reform, import restrictions, and exchange rates. Before joining AEI, he was a managing director and chief emerging market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney. Previously, he was deputy director in the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund.

Adam Lerrick is a visiting scholar at AEI, 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 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 Argentina’s $100-billion 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 he has appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, National Public Radio, Bloomberg Television, and PBS’s For the Record. His academic writings have been published 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.

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