AUTHORS’ SHORT BIOS
Christopher D. Daykin
Chris Daykin has been the Government Actuary of the United Kingdom since April 1989.
After graduating with a 1st Class Honours degree in mathematics from Cambridge
University (UK), he joined the Government Actuary's Department (GAD) in 1970 and
qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1973. At the GAD he has worked on
pension fund consultancy, population projections, consumer credit, social security and
the supervision of both life and non-life insurance companies. He was President of the
Institute of Actuaries from 1994 to 1996 and Chairman of the International Forum of
Actuarial Associations (IFAA) from 1996 to 1997. He has been the UK representative on
the Pensions Observatory established by the Commission of the European Communities
and is the Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Statistical, Actuarial and Financial
Studies of the International Social Security Association. He has written numerous
papers on actuarial topics, including pensions, social security, general and life insurance,
demography and AIDS. He is joint author of the book Practical Risk Theory for
Actuaries. In 1995 he was awarded a degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by
the City University, London. In 1997 he was appointed an Honorary Visiting Professor at
the City University and in 1998 an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Shanghai
University of Finance and Economics. In 1998 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the
Institute of Actuaries.
Richard Disney
Richard Disney joined the University of Nottingham as a Professor in the School of
Economics in September 1998 having previously been Professor of Economics at
Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London (1995-98) and Professor of
Economics at the University of Kent at Canterbury (1988-95). He previously worked at
the University of Reading, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia. He is also a Research Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies,
London, and has recently held visiting positions at both the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, the ILO, the
OECD and a number of UK government departments. His research interests lie largely
in the field of applied microeconomics, including tax policy, social welfare reform and
pensions policy, all in both developed and the developing countries, and the
economics of labour markets, including retirement behaviour and wage structure. He
has recently been working on disaggregated studies of establishment-level
productivity with Professor Jonathan Haskel (Queen Mary College, London). He has
published numerous articles in journals such as the Economic Journal, European
Economic Review and Economica. His recent book Can we afford to grow older? A
perspective on the economics of aging (1996) was published by MIT Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He teaches macroeconomics at the first year, graduate
level growth theory, and contributes to taught modules on labour economics and the
economics of public policy at the University of Nottingham. He is Director of the
School's Experian Centre for Economic Modelling (ExCEM). He is also a member of the
Council of the Royal Economic Society, of the Scientific Board of the Centre for
Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies in Turin (CeRP) and a Governor of the
Pensions Policy Institute.
Paul Gray
Paul Gray is Second Permanent Secretary and the Managing Director for Pensions and
Disability in the Department for Work and Pensions. He provides strategic direction and
leadership for the work of the Department's pensions and disability client groups. As a
member of the Departmental Board and Executive Team he also plays a full part in the
corporate leadership of the Department including cross cutting roles on aspects such as
the Euro, international work and consumer issues.
Paul began his Civil Service career at H M Treasury in 1969 as a professional economist,
but after a few years transferred to mainstream Civil Service administrative roles. In the
late 1970s he spent two years working as a corporate planner with a private sector
company. During the 1980s he worked on agriculture, industry and employment issues
and co-ordinated the Public Expenditure Survey process. He was Economic Affairs
Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.
In 1990 Paul returned to the Treasury, and spent three years working on monetary
policy, serving as a member of the EU Monetary Committee. He then spent some time
as Head of Personnel and Central Services before moving on to become Director of
Budget and Public Finances. In March 1998 he moved to the Department of Social
Security as Head of Policy.
Michael Orszag
Dr. J. Michael Orszag is head of research of Watson Wyatt, the global actuarial,
benefits and human resources consultancy. His research interests are broadly in the
areas of pensions, insurance and employee benefits. Orszag is a founding editor of
the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (Cambridge University Press) and
chairman of the research committee of the OECD International Network of Pension
Regulators and Supervisors. Orszag is visiting professor of actuarial science, Cass
Business School, City University, London and co-director of the Initiative for Policy
Dialogue's Pension Reform and Social Insurance Task Force.
He was educated at Princeton University and the University of Michigan, where he
obtained a PhD in economics. Prior to joining Watson Wyatt in 2001, Orszag was an
economics academic at Birkbeck College, University of London where he worked on
issues relating to personnel economics, pensions and insurance. He also initiated and
designed the postgraduate diploma in e-commerce (PDEC) in 1999, which was one of
the first degree programs in e-commerce in Europe.
Tito Boeri
After obtaining his Ph.D. in economics from New York University, Tito Boeri was senior
economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
from 1987 to 1996. In this position, among other things, he coordinated all the work
carried out by the OECD in the field of human resource policies in the central and
eastern European economies in transition after 1990. He was also consultant to the
International Monetary Fund, the ILO and the World Bank. He is currently professor
of economics at Bocconi University, Milan -- where he teaches courses on labour
economics and the economics of transition and he is director of the Degree in
International Economics and Management (DIEM) -- and affiliated with the Innocenzo
Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER). He is Director of the Fondazione
Rodolfo Debenedetti operating in the field of labour market and social policy reforms
in Europe. He is research fellow of CEPR and of the William Davidson at the University
of Michigan Business School.