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Since
March of 2011 Augusto López-Claros is Director of Global Indicators and
Analysis with the World Bank Group, the department responsible for the Doing Business Report, as well as a number of other benchmarking studies, such as Investing Across Borders and Women, Business and the Law.
Earlier in his career he was the Chief Economist and Director of the
Global Competitiveness Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva.
In this capacity he traveled widely and engaged with senior
policymakers in government and the business community on the policy and
institutional requirements associated with improvements in the business
environment. For many years he was the editor of the Forum's Global Competitiveness Report.
He has a degree in mathematical statistics from Cambridge University,
England, and a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University in the United
States. Before joining the Forum in 2003 he was Executive Director and
Senior International Economist with Lehman Brothers International in
London. During his 5-year stay with Lehman he wrote extensively on a
broad range of economic and financial topics. As part of this research
work and to meet with Lehman clients he traveled extensively in Europe,
North and South America, the Middle East and Asia. He is a frequent
commentator on economic and financial issues, having given well over
150 TV interviews during the past decade on all the major networks.
Before Lehman he worked as an economist with the International Monetary
Fund in Washington, an organization he joined in the mid-1980s.
During his years of service at the Fund his assignments included being
country economist for Spain; working in the Fund’s main policy making
department, where he begun to work on Eastern Europe and did some of
the early work at the Fund on good governance. From 1992 to 1995 he was
Resident Representative for the IMF in the Russian Federation, where he
was responsible for program implementation issues in the context of the
IMF’s multibillion dollar program of assistance to the Russian
Federation. His stay in Russia was followed by a one-year sabbatical in
Moscow, an opportunity he used to do research (subsequently published
by the IMF) and to travel extensively throughout Russia to gain a
broader perspective on the transition. Prior to his service with the
IMF, he was Professor of Economics at the University of Chile,
Santiago, where, in addition to his teaching duties, he also headed a
research team financed by the Ministry of Health examining economic
aspects of alcohol abuse in Chile.
Dr. Lopez-Claros has written and lectured extensively on a wide range
of topics in his field, including European economic integration, the
determinants of competitiveness, reform issues in transition economies,
the European Monetary System, and on a broad range of financial and
macroeconomic issues affecting emerging markets. He is a much
sought-after international speaker, having lectured in the last several
years at: the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow; the Oxford
Business School; Darwin and Corpus Christi Colleges at Cambridge
University; the RAND Business School in California; the European
Central Bank in Frankfurt; the Central Bank of Chile; Imperial College
and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; the
Shakespeare Library in Moscow; the India Economic Summit in New Delhi;
the China Business Summit in Beijing; the New York Stock Exchange; the
Aspen Institute in Washington DC; the Australian Leadership Retreat;
the International Leadership Forum in Kuala Lumpur; the annual meetings
of the World Economic Forum in Davos; Microsoft’s 2007 Government
Leaders Forum for Europe in Edinburgh and the Americas in Cartagena,
Colombia, and Miami, Washington DC and Mexico City over the period
2007-2010; the European Business School in Frankfurt; the 2008 United
Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York; The Economist’s
Emerging Markets Summit; the James Martin 21st Century School at the
University of Oxford, as well as keynote presentations for Microsoft in
the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica,
among many others. In 2007 he was co-editor of The International Monetary System, the IMF, and the G-20: A Great Transformation in the Making? and also The Humanitarian Response Index: Measuring Commitment to Best Practice, both published by Palgrave. He is the editor of The Innovation for Development Report 2009-2010: Strengthening Innovation for the Prosperity of Nations, published by Palgrave in November of 2009 and The Innovation for Development Report 2010-2011: Innovation as a Driver of Productivity and Economic Growth, published by Palgrave in late 2010. In 2009 he was appointed honorary professor at the European Business School in Frankfurt.
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