Dr. Posen's research focuses on macroeconomic policy, European and Japanese political economy, central banking issues, and the resolution of financial crises.

Dr. Posen is the author of Restoring Japan’s Economic Growth (1998), as well as of numerous research articles in monetary economics, the co-author with Ben Bernanke, et al, of Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience (1999), and is the editor and part-author of five collected volumes including The Euro at 10: The Next Global Currency? (2009).

His research has been supported by major grants from the European Commission, the Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the Sloan Foundation. Dr. Posen is in his second term as a member of the Panel of Economic Advisors to the US Congressional Budget Office, was previously a visiting scholar at central banks worldwide, and has been a consultant to several G-7 governments on global economic and foreign policy issues.

He received his Ph.D. and his A.B. from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow.

A citizen of France, Olivier Blanchard has spent his professional life in Cambridge, U.S. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, where he has been since then.

He is the Class of 1941 Professor of Economics, and past Chair of the Economics Department. He is currently on leave from MIT, as Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.

He is a macroeconomist, who has worked on a wide set of issues, from the role of monetary policy, to the nature of speculative bubbles, to the nature of the labor market and the determinants of unemployment, to transition in former communist countries. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations. He is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks in macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer, one at the undergraduate level.

He is a fellow and Council member of the Econometric Society, a past vice president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences.

From December 1994 to December 1997, Dr. Ortiz served as Secretary of Finance and Public Credit in the Mexican Federal Government. Prior to heading the Finance Ministry, he served briefly as Secretary of Telecommunications and Transportation at the outset of the Zedillo Administration.

His past professional experience includes having served as Undersecretary of Finance and Public Credit from December 1988 to November 1994. Before that position, he was Executive Director at the IMF (1984-1988) and Manager, as well as Deputy Manager, in the Economic Research Bureau of the Bank of Mexico (1977-1984), and an Economist in the Ministry of the Presidency of Mexico (1971-1972).

Dr. Ortiz has also taught at universities in Mexico and the United States. He has written and published two books and numerous papers on economics and finance in specialized journals and magazines in Mexico and abroad. He has received several honors and awards. Dr. Ortiz is a member of the Group of Thirty. In 2006, he was invited as a member to the committee of eminent persons that will be in charge of studying sustainable long-term financing of IMF running costs. In this year, he was also appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Dr. Ortiz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and later a PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Otmar Issing is Chairman of the group of experts advising the German Government on reforms in financial architecture (2008), International Advisor to Goldman Sachs International (2006) and member of the Advisory Board of Globalisation and Monetary Policy Institute at Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (2007).

Otmar Issing was member of the High Level Expert Group on EU financial supervision (De Larosière Group) (2008-2009). As a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from June 1998 to May 2006 Professor Issing was responsible for the Directorates General Economics and Research. From 1990 to 1998 he was a member of the Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank with a seat in the Central Bank Council. From 1988 to 1990 he was a member of the Council of Experts in Germany for the Assessment of Overall Economic Developments.

He is Honorary Professor at University of Frankfurt (2007) and University of Würzburg (1991). He held Chairs of Economics at the Universities of Würzburg (1973-1990) and Erlangen-Nuremberg (1967-1973).

In 2001, Mr. Stiglitz accepted a joint chaired professorship at Columbia Business School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (in the Department of Economics) and the School of International and Public Affairs.

In October 2001, Mr. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. He has been a fellow of the Econometric Society since the age of 29, and is a member of the National Academy of Science. He also received the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal. He was a Fulbright Scholar and a Tapp Junior Research Fellow at Cambridge University in 1970.