Financial Transaction Taxes

About the Authors

Stephany Griffith-Jones
Financial Markets Program Director
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)

Stephany Griffith-Jones is an economist specialising in international finance and development, with emphasis on reform of the international and national financial system, especially in relation to financial regulation and global governance. She is Financial Markets Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University. Previously she was Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. She was Director of International Finance at the Commonwealth Secretariat and worked at UN DESA and ECLAC. She was senior consultant to governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa and many international agencies, including the World Bank, the IADB, the European Commission, UNDP and UNCTAD. She was a member of the Warwick Commission on financial regulation. She currently is theme leader on finance in the ESRC /DFID growth programme for LICs, especially African ones. She has published over 20 books and many scholarly and journalistic articles. Her books include Time for the Visible Hand, Lessons from the 2008 crisis, edited jointly with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz.

Avinash Persaud
Founder and Chairman
Intelligence Capital Limited, Warwick Commission

Avinash Persaud is Executive Chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, a financial advisory boutique; Chairman of Elara Capital PLC, an emerging market specialist; and Chairman of Paradise Beach Limited. He was formerly the managing director at State Street Bank & Trust and global head of currency and commodity research, J. P. Morgan. He is emeritus Professor, Gresham College; Senior Fellow, London Business School; Visiting Fellow, Cambridge University; Governor, London School of Economics; Member of Council, Royal Economics Society; and 2010 President of the Economics Section, British Association for the Advancement of Science. He was Chairman, Warwick Commission on Financial Regulation; Member, Pew Task Force to the US Senate Banking Committee, Member and Chairman of the Regulatory sub-committee of the UN Commission of Experts on Financial Reform and Member, International Task Force on Financial Transaction Taxes. He is a former Visiting Scholar of the IMF and ECB and Member of the UK Treasury’s Audit & Risk Committee. He is a Member of the National Council of Economic Advisors in Barbados.