Joseph E Stiglitz announced as opening speaker of IBA 2012 Annual Conference

The Nobel Prize in Economics Laureate Joseph E Stiglitz, was announced as the keynote speaker of the International Bar Association’s 2012 Annual Conference. The Conference will take place at the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD), between 30 September and 5 October in Dublin, Ireland.

Professor Stiglitz, Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank between 1997 and 2000, will address thousands of legal professionals from across the globe at the opening ceremony of the International Bar Association (IBA) six-day event. A frequently cited economist and renowned leading educator in economics, Professor Stiglitz’s remarks will provide the audience with the latest thinking on the most salient topics of the day, including the global economy and the sovereign debt crisis. Representing more than 100 countries the audience will include private practitioners, in-house counsel, human rights advocates, judges, heads of bar associations, business leaders, and government representatives.

Mr Akira Kawamura, IBA President and Partner at Anderson Mori Tomotsune, in Tokyo, Japan, said, ‘I am delighted that Professor Stiglitz will be the keynote speaker of the IBA’s flagship event this year. A pioneer in the field of economic theory and a chief policymaker, his global perspective, observations and analysis of the current economic situations around the world will be significantly relevant to the IBA’s international audience. The unprecedented economic environments in all jurisdictions are likely to be discussed endlessly by Conference delegates throughout the week, making Professor Stiglitz’s contribution to the debate all the more pertinent and welcome.’

Professor Stiglitz’s work has focused on explaining the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance. Policy analysts and theorists alike have adopted, as standard tools, the pivotal concepts of adverse selection and moral hazard, advanced by the new branch of economics which Professor Stiglitz helped to create and which explores the consequences of information asymmetries, ‘The Economics of Information’.

Currently, Professor Stiglitz holds the positions of University Professor at Columbia University in New York, Co-Chair of the university’s Committee on Global Thought, and Co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He has also taught at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Oxford, Princeton, and Stanford universities. Among a number of other prestigious positions held by Professor Stiglitz are: Chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisors (1995–1997); Chair of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, and by appointment of the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Chair of the Commission of Experts on Reform of the International Financial and Monetary System. Both Commissions released reports in 2009.

Professor Stiglitz’s extensive curriculum vitae includes major contributions to other fields in macroeconomics and monetary theory, development economics and trade theory, public and corporate finance theory, and also to the theories of industrial and rural organisation, welfare economics and income and wealth distribution.

The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Professor Stiglitz in 2001 for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information.

For more information about the IBA’s 2012 Annual Conference and to view the programme, click here, or paste the following link into an internet browser www.int-bar.org/Conferences/Dublin2012/.