FOR THE MOTION
Robert is professor of political economy at the London School of Economics. He won the Leontief Prize in Economics in 2008. He is a member of the Financial Times’ Economists’ Forum, which it describes as “50 of the world’s most influential economists”.
Author of Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asia’s Industrialization (1990, 2004). The book won the American Political Science Association’s Best Book in Political Economy award for 1989-91. Other books include Irrigation and Agricultural Politics in South Korea (1982), and Village Republics: Economic Conditions of Collective Action in South India (1988, 1994, 2008).
More recent work has dealt with world income distribution; global economic governance (especially the World Bank, IMF and WTO); the validity of neoliberal (“Washington Consensus”) policy prescriptions, with particular reference to East Asia, the US and the UK; and the causes of financial crises.
In 2008 he contributed to the debate about the opening of the Arctic (eg “A warmer Arctic needs shipping rules”, Financial Times, 16 Jan 2008, “Hopes for the Arctic are on the rise”, FT 6 Feb 08).
He graduated from Otago University and Victoria University in New Zealand, and took a PhD at Sussex University. Subsequently worked at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University; the World Bank; the US Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment; Princeton University; MIT; and Brown University. Conducted field research in Pitcairn Is.; southern Tuscany; India; South Korea; Taiwan; and inside the World Bank.
