Foreign Member

Prof. Philippe Aghion is Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Program Director in Industrial Organization at CEPR, and Fellow at NBER and IFS. He is one of the most prolific and influential economists of his generation. He focuses much of his attention on the relationship between economic growth and policy. By focusing explicitly on innovations as a main source of economic growth, this approach opens the door to a deeper understanding of how organizations, competition policy, education, savings and the financial system, and macroeconomic policy both affect and are affected by growth, through how these interact with local entrepreneurs' incentives to either innovate or to imitate the frontier technologies. In the process of trying to link growth and organizations, Prof. Aghion has also contributed to the field of contract theory and corporate governance. His work concentrates on the question of how to allocate authority and control rights within a firm, or between entrepreneurs and investors.

In addition to his academic research, Prof. Aghion has been associated with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) since 1990. He is also managing editor of the journal The Economics of Transition, which he launched in 1992. 

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Saifedean Ammous is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Lebanese American University. He holds a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University (2011). His dissertation examined policies supporting biofuels in the United States and the European Union as a case study in energy and environmental policy. Ammous’s research interests include energy and environmental economics as well as monetary economics and political economy. His research is motivated by a consideration of knowledge problems in economics and social affairs, the concept of spontaneous and emergent order, as well as the limitations of centralized planning. He is currently conducting research on the economic roots of the recent popular revolutions in the Arab world. Ammous holds an M.Phil (2007) and MA (2006) in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, an MSc in Development Management (2004) from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering (2003) from the American University of Beirut.

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Ping Chen is currently Professor of Economics at the National School of Development, at Peking University, and Senior Research Fellow at Center for New Political Economy at Fudan University. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at University of Texas at Austin in 1987, supervised by Ilya Prigogine. Ping Chen is a pioneer in studying economic chaos and economic complexity since he shifted his interest from physics to economics amid the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In 1987, he found empirical and theoretical evidence of economic chaos from monetary indexes, and in 1994, evidence of persistent cycles from macro and stock indexes. He also discovered weak evidence of micro foundation of macro fluctuations based on the Principle of Large Numbers in 2002 and has proposed a new trinity of micro-meso-macro economy in economic analysis. His book, Economic Complexity and Equilibrium Illusion: Essays on Market Instability and Macro Vitality, published by Routledge in 2010, developed a new perspective of complex evolutionary economics. He has been actively involved in China’s reform policy since 1978.

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Howard Davies is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to his current appointment he was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the UK's single financial regulator since 1998. He had previously served for two years as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, after three years as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. From 1987 to 1992 he was Controller of the Audit Commission. From 1982 to 1987 he worked for McKinsey & Company in London and during 1985-1986 was seconded to the Treasury as Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had previously worked at the Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including two years as Private Secretary to the British Ambassador in Paris.


He is a Trustee of the Tate, a member of the governing body of the Royal Academy of Music; Patron of Working Families; and in 2004 was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Merton College. Since 2003 he has been a member of the International Advisory council of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. In 2004 he joined the board of Morgan Stanley as a non-executive director, and in 2006 joined the Board of Paternoster plc, a new insurance company.  In 2009 he became an advisor to the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore.


Howard Davies has written several books, including The Chancellors' Tales, published in November 2006. Global Financial Regulation: The Essential Guide, (March 2008) and Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Banking (March 2010) have been co-authored with David Green.

Sheila Dow is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and Convener of the Scottish Centre for Economic Methodology. Her main academic focus has been on raising methodological awareness in the fields of macroeconomics, money and banking, and the history of economic thought (especially Hume, Smith and Keynes). While her career has primarily been in academia, she has a policy background from positions with the Bank of England and the Government of Manitoba, and latterly as a special advisor on monetary policy to the UK Treasury Select Committee. She has held positions with a range of academic organisations, such as Chair of the International Network for Economic Method. Recent books include Economic Methodology: An Inquiry, OUP 2002, A History of Scottish Economic Thought, Routledge 2006, co-edited with Alexander Dow, and Open Economics, Routledge 2009, co-edited with Richard Arena and Matthias Klaes.

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Jean-Paul Fitoussi is Professor of Economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, where he has taught since 1982 and whose Scientific Committee he now chairs. He is currently President of the Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE), an economic research and forecasting institute. His writing appears regularly in newspapers in France and abroad and he is commentator for La Repubblica and Le Monde. Since 2002 he has been Director of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. In the field of research, Mr. Fitoussi has concentrated on inflation theory, unemployment, foreign trade and the role of macroeconomic policy.

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Dominique Foray is the Director of the "Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation". He is currently vice-chairman of the expert group "Knowledge for Growth", a group of prominent economists created to advise Commisioner J. Potocnik. He is also a member of the National Research Council, the Advisory Board of the Swiss Economic Institute and the WEF's Global Agenda Councils. He serves as the 2009-President of the European Policy for Intellectual Property association.

Between 2004 and 2008 Foray was the Dean of the "Collège du Management de la Technologie". Before joining EPFL, he was a Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and a Professor at the Institut pour le Management de la Recherche et de l'Innovation of the University of Paris-Dauphine; he was then a Principal Analyst at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development from 2000 to 2004.

Foray research interests include all topics and issues related to the economics and management of technology, knowledge and innovation at both the micro and macro levels. This broad field covers the economics of science and technology with a particular focus on high tech sectors, the management of large-scale technological projects, international comparisons of institutions, and systems of innovation within the context of the new economy. Intellectual property and competition policies, information technology and the new economy, capital market and entrepreneurship, national systems of innovation are fields of high relevance for his research.

Foray is recognized as one of the leading academic experts in the economics of innovation and knowledge and economic policy implications of the new knowledge-based economy.

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Professor Hian Teck Hoon is a Professor of Economics and the
Associate Dean, School of Economics, Singapore Management University.

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John Kay is a visiting Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers. He is a director of several public companies and contributes a weekly column to the Financial Times. He is the author of many books, including The Truth about Markets (2003) and The Long and the Short of It: finance and investment for normally intelligent people who are not in the industry (2009) and his latest book, Obliquity was published by Profile Books in March 2010.

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Esa Saarinen is a Finnish philosopher, corporate coach and inspirational speaker. A media figure and celebrity in Finland, Esa is famed for bringing philosophy to bear on everyday life among the wide audience through his media appearances, colorful writings and public lectures. Working extensively with Finnish companies, most notably with Nokia in the years that transformed the company to the global leader in its field, Esa has developed a distinctive real-life philosophy with focus on the human potential. The idea of Esa's "positive philosophical practice" is to be of service for the cause of the good life and human flourishing. Professor of Applied Philosophy at Aalto University, Esa's lectures invariably attract record audiences. His best known book is Imagologies: Media Philosophy, co-authored with Mark. C. Taylor of Columbia University. Esa is married with the love of his live ("the Queen Pipsa") with whom he has twin boys.  

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Juan Vicente Sola is a Professor of Constitutional at the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires, and the Director of the Centre of Law and Economics, University of Buenos Aires. 

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Dr Wang Jianguo obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wuhan University in 1982, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Leuven University in 1984, and a Ph.D degree in economics from Monash University in 1993.

Dr. Wang currently teaches marketing and economics at Peking University and additionally, he services as Director of Sino-US Research Center for New Market Economy and Management; Director of MBA and IMBA Programs (2001, 2002); Director of China Research Center on Low Carbon Development; Deputy Director of Research Centre on Contemporary China, PKU; Director of Study Centre on Transitional Economy at NUS. As a well-established scholar, writer, and commentator, Dr Wang has taught business and economics at Monash University, the University of New South Wales, the National University of Singapore, and Nanyang Technological University since 1990.

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Gylfi Zoega is a Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland, a part-time professor at Birkbeck College at the University of London and an External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Iceland.  He has published numerous articles on macroeconomics and labor economics, which appear in the American Economic Review, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and the Journal of Applied Econometrics.

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