Thorvaldur Gylfason

University of Iceland and CEPR

Thorvaldur Gylfason is Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland. He is also Research Fellow at CESifo (Center for Economic Studies) at the University of Munich, Research Associate at the Center for U.S.-Japan Business and Economic Studies at New York University, and Fellow of the European Economic Association. He has published nearly 200 papers in international journals and books and in his native Icelandic, in addition to more than 20 books, including seven, soon eight, collections of essays in Icelandic and about 700 articles in newspapers and magazines plus several songs for mixed choir. After obtaining his doctorate in economics at Princeton University, he worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington 1976-1981. He was Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton 1986-1988, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University 1978-1996, and Research Fellow at CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research) in London 1987-2009. He is one of three authors of Understanding the Market Economy (Oxford University Press, 1992), which has appeared in seventeen languages, including Russian and Chinese. In recent years, he has been a frequent consultant to the International Monetary Fund and also the World Bank, the European Commission, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). This work has included extensive lecturing at the Joint Vienna Institute in Vienna, in all parts of Africa, as well as in Asia and the Middle East. In 1996-1997, he led the SNS Economic Policy Group in Sweden. Its report appeared in Swedish and English (The Swedish Model under Stress: A View from the Stands, SNS Förlag, 1997). His book Understanding Economic Growth (SNS Förlag, 1998) reappeared as Principles of Economic Growth (Oxford University Press, 1999). His television series, To Build a Nation, which deals with aspects of the history of economic ideas in Iceland, was shown on Icelandic State Television in 1998 and reappeared on DVD in 2011. He is one of five authors of Nordics in Global Crisis (ETLA, 2010). His current research is mostly in the field of economic reforms and growth. He was editor of the European Economic Review 2002-2010, and is associate editor of several other economics journals. He wrote a weekly column for Fréttablaðið, Iceland's largest daily newspaper, 2003-2011 and has since 2011 written a biweekly column for DV, another Icelandic newspaper, in addition to various other Icelandic and foreign papers. He was elected in 2010 to Iceland's Constitutional Assembly and appointed by Parliament in 2011 to Iceland's Constitutional Council which delivered its unanimously approved constitutional bill  to Parliament 29 July 2011.