This report was produced under the guidance of Uri Dadush, former World Bank Chief Economist François Bourguignon, and Acting (as of January 2008) Chief Economist Alan Gelb. The principal authors of this report are Andrew Burns, Hans Timmer, Elliot (Mick) Riordan, and William Shaw. ANDREW BURNS is a Lead Economist with the Development Prospects Group. He is the main author of the World Bank's flagship publication Global Economic Prospects, which last year explored the importance of the diffusion of technology in developing countries. Currently, he is heading a team analyzing future prospects for global commodity markets and their impliations for developing countries. He has also been a principal contributor to past editions of the World Bank's Global Development Finance. Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Burns worked with the OECD where he was Head of Desk for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and France. His principal responsibilities included supervising and writing the OECD's Economic Surveys for these countries. He also played a lead role in the OECD's Jobs Study, supervising the evaluation of labor market policies in each of the organization's 30 member countries. Mr. Burns holds degrees from the University of Manitoba and McGill University in Canada. HANS TIMMER, a Dutch national, is Lead Economist and Manager of the Global Trends team in the Bank's Development Prospects Group. Under his management, the Global Trends Team is responsible for authoring "Chapter One - Global Outlook and the Developing Countries" of this year's Global Economic Prospects. He is also responsible for short-term monitoring, medium-term forecasting and policy analysis and long-term scenario analysis of the global economy. Before joining the Bank in May 2000, he was head of international economic analysis at Central Planning Bureau (CPB) for ten years. In this role, he supervised the development of two world models: a long-term model of the world economy, and an econometric medium-term model of OECD economies. He has had vast experience working with the European Commission, IPCC and the OECD, as well as with the Indian Planning Commission and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He has participated in international modeling groups like LINK and GTAP. Mr. Timmer studied Econometrics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He has been a researcher at the University of Lodz in Poland and at the Netherlands Economic Institute. ELLIOT (MICK) RIORDAN is a Senior Economist for the Global Trends Team of the Development Prospects Group, providing forecast analysis for the group's products and publications. He has participated in studies on topics of global importance such as Iraq, and oil prices, which support the Bank's Regional efforts to better understand the global context. Before joining the Bank, he was Director of International Consulting for the WEFA Group (now Global Insights), and was also involved in foreign exchange advisory work, and large-scale projects in contract consulting. Mick Riordan holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics (1981), and a BSc in International Business from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1977). WILLIAM SHAW retired in 2004 as Lead Economist for the International Finance Team of the Development Prospects Group. He is currently working on Global Economic Prospects reports. He has also worked in Regional Operations on Bolivia, Tanzania, and private sector development issues in the Caribbean. Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Shaw worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. Shaw holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University.    |
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