Willem Buiter is Professor of European Political Economy at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (1997-2000) and Chief Economist and Special Adviser to the President at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (2000-2005). He has held academic appointments at Princeton University, the University of Bristol, Yale University and the University of Cambridge and has been a consultant and advisor to the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, The Inter-American Development Bank, the EBRD, the European Communities and a number of national governments and government agencies. Since 2005, he is an Advisor to Goldman Sachs International. He has published widely on subjects such as open economy macroeconomics, monetary and exchange rate theory, fiscal policy, social security, economic development and transition economies. He obtained his PhD in Economics from Yale in 1975.