Graham Bird is a professor of economics at Claremont Graduate University in the United States where he is also Deputy Director of the Claremont Institute for Economic Policy Studies. He is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey where for twelve years was Head of the Economics Department and for twenty years was Director of the Surrey Centre for International Economic Studies. He has been a visiting scholar in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Research Department, and a senior expert adviser to the Fund’s Independent Evaluation Office. He has been a consultant to the European Central Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNICEF and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Graham is the author, co-author or editor of more than 250 publications including 26 books and monographs. His articles have appeared in internationally leading economics, development and international relations journals and his research has been heavily cited in the academic literature and widely used by policy makers. He has been a frequent contributor to World Economics.