June 14, 2004

Speaker Biographies

Roger Bate is a visiting fellow at AEI. Before coming to AEI, he was director of the International Policy Network from 2001 to 2003, director of the Environmental Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1993 to 2003, and director of the European Science and Environment Forum from 1995 to 2001. Mr. Bate researches water policy in developing countries, health policy and endemic diseases in developing countries (AIDS and malaria), international environmental and health agreements (industrial chemicals, climate change, and water), the role of aid agencies and NGOs in developing countries, and genetically modified organisms and pesticide policy in developing countries. He has written numerous articles and opinion pieces, as well as several books, including Saving Our Streams: The Role of the Anglers Conservation Association in Preventing Pollution in English and Welsh Rivers (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2001); Malaria and the DDT Story (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2001); and Life's Adventure: Virtual Risk in a Real World (Butterworth Heinemann, 2000).

Veronique de Rugy is a research fellow at AEI. She was a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute from 2001 to 2004, a postdoctoral fellow at the George Mason University Department of Economics from 2000 to 2001, and a research fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation from 1999 to 2000, and she has also served on the Board of Directors of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity since 2000. She has written extensively on the dangers of EU and OECD tax harmonization proposals, is the author of numerous op-eds and academic papers, and is the coauthor of Action ou Taxation, published in Switzerland in 1996.

David Oddsson has been Iceland's prime minister and leader of the Independence Party since 1991, making him Europe's longest-serving prime minister. Before becoming prime minister, he served as mayor of Reykjavik, as managing director of the Reykjavik Health Insurance Fund, as chairman of the Executive Committee of Reykjavik Arts Festival, and was a parliamentary reporter for the newspaper Morgunbladid. Mr. Oddsson is the coauthor of two theater dramas, "For My Country's Benefit" (in National Theatre 1974-1975) and "Icelandic Confabulations" (in Reykjavik Theatre 1975-1976), and is the author of three television dramas: "Robert Eliasson Returns Home from Abroad" (1977); "Dust on the Collar" (1981); and "Everything's Fine" (1982). He has also written two best-selling collections of short stories, A Couple of Days without Gudny (1997) and Stolen from the Author of the Alphabet (2002).

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