Professor Sir James A. Mirrlees. Nobel Laureate in economic sciences, Professor Sir James A. Mirrlees was appointed as Master of Morningside College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong in August 2009. A pioneer in optimal taxation theory, Professor Sir James Mirrlees was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1996 in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information. He was knighted in 1997. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1957, Professor Mirrlees was admitted to Trinity College at Cambridge University and received his PhD in Economics in 1963. From 1968 to 1995 he was Edgeworth Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Nuffield College. From 1995 to 2003, he has served as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge. He has been Distinguished Professor-at-Large at CUHK since 2002. Professor Mirrlees has also held visiting professorships at MIT, UC Berkeley, Yale and Melbourne.

Professor Jagdish Bhagwati is senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and University Professor at Columbia University. He has been economic policy adviser to Arthur Dunkel, director-general of GATT (1991–93), special adviser to the UN on globalization, and external adviser to the WTO. He has served on the expert group appointed by the director-general of the WTO on the future of the WTO and the advisory committee to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the NEPAD process in Africa, and was also a member of the Eminent Persons Group under the chairmanship of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on the future of UNCTAD. Professor Bhagwati has published more than three hundred articles and has authored or edited over fifty volumes; he also writes frequently for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times, as well as reviews for the New Republic and the Times Literary Supplement. Professor Bhagwati is described as the most creative international trade theorist of his generation and is a leader in the fight for freer trade. His most recent book Termites in the Trading System (Oxford University Press, 2008) discusses the deleterious effects of preferential trading agreements. His previous book In Defense of Globalization (Oxford University Press, 2004) attracted worldwide acclaim. Five volumes of his scientific writings and two of his public policy essays have been published by MIT press. The recipient of six festschrifts in his honor, he has also received several prizes and honorary degrees, including awards from the governments of India (Padma Vibhushan) and Japan (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star). A native of India, Professor Bhagwati attended Cambridge University where he graduated in 1956 with a first in economics tripos. He then continued to study at MIT and Oxford returning to India in 1961 as professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute and then as professor of international trade at the Delhi School of Economics. He returned to MIT in 1968, leaving it twelve years later as the Ford International Professor of Economics to join Columbia. He is married to Padma Desai, the Gladys and Ronald Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at Columbia University and a scholar of Russian and other former socialist countries’ transition problems. They have one daughter, Anuradha Kristina.      

2014 Eminent Speaker – Professor Joseph E Stilgitz

Media enquiries should be directed to Mark Henley  on 0404 067011 | MarkH@unitingcommunities.org   

2013 Eminent Speaker Series – Deirdre McCloskey

Please follow the links below to listen to or view interviews of Deirdre McCloskey, 2013 Eminent Speaker.

• ABC Radio Queensland interview with Steve Austin: http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/deirdrie-mcclosky-interview.mp3 (cut and paste in your browser)
• Sydney Morning Herald, December 2, 2013 | Economist Deirdre McCloskey: playing both sides of the street.  To view the entire article, click on: http://www.smh.com.au/business/economist-deirdre-mccloskey-playing-both-sides-of-the-street-20131129-2ygwu.html
• ABC Religion & Ethics: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/11/27/3900351.htm
• CIS Bonython lecture - The Great Enrichment  http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-great-enrichment/5131860

The Eminent Speaker Series for 2017 has now concluded.  We hope you managed to see Dr John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco during his visit to Australia.