Speaker biographies

James K. Glassman is editor in chief of The American magazine and a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in issues involving economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and cofounder of TechCentralStation.com, a website that concentrates on matters of technology and public policy. In September 2004, Mr. Glassman launched a new organization, Investors Action, for which he serves as chairman. Investors Action aims to educate America’s 90 million investors and represent their interests in the public-policy arena. Mr. Glassman also writes a weekly op-ed column on economic and political topics for the Scripps Howard News Service, and a monthly column on investing for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. His most recent book, The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown, 2002) was named one of the top ten investing books of 2002 by Barron’s. Between July 1993 and July 2004, Mr. Glassman wrote an internationally syndicated weekly column on investing for the Washington Post. From 1987 to 1993, he was editor and part-owner of Roll Call, the twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Prior to that, he had a long career in magazine publishing—as president of the Atlantic Monthly, executive vice president of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of The New Republic. In 1972, he started Figaro, a New Orleans weekly newspaper, which he sold in 1979. He served as executive editor of Washingtonian magazine from 1979 to 1981.

Scott E. Harrington is a professor in the Health Care Systems and Insurance and Risk Management Departments in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and was previously a professor at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. A former president of both the American Risk and Insurance Association and the Risk Theory Society, he has published articles in numerous academic and policy journals including the Journal of Business, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Financial Intermediation, and the Journal of Risk and Insurance. He is coauthor or coeditor of numerous books, including Cycles and Crises in Property/Casualty Insurance (NAIC, 1991) and the McGraw-Hill textbook Risk Management and Insurance (1999).

Thomas W. Hazlett is a professor of law and economics and serves as director of the Information Economy Project of the National Center for Technology and Law at the George Mason School of Law. He is also a columnist for the New Technology Policy Forum hosted by the Financial Times. Mr. Hazlett previously held faculty appointments at the University of California at Davis, Columbia University, and the Wharton School, and in 1991–92 served as chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission. He has published widely in academic and popular journals on the economics of the information sector, and has provided expert testimony to federal and state courts, regulatory agencies, committees of Congress, foreign governments, and international organizations. His book, Public Policy toward Cable Television, was coauthored with Matthew L. Spitzer (MIT Press, 1997).

George G. Kaufman is the John Smith Professor of Finance and Economics and the director of the Center for Financial and Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Previously he was the John Rogers Professor of Banking at the University of Oregon and a research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, to which he still serves as a consultant. Mr. Kaufman was also a visiting professor at Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and Southern California University, and served as deputy to the assistant secretary for economic policy in the U.S. Treasury Department. He has published widely in journals and books and is the coeditor of the Journal of Financial Stability. He is a past president of the Western Finance Association, the Midwest Finance Association, and the North American Economics and Finance Association; a past director of the American Finance Association; a current director of the Western Economic Association; and a co-chair of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee.

Paul Teske is a professor of public affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center, director of the university’s Graduate School of Public Affairs Center for Education Policy Analysis, and director of the university’s PhD program in public affairs. From 1988–2003, he was a professor of political science at SUNY Stony Brook. Mr. Teske’s public policy research has centered on state and local education policy, regulatory policy, urban policy, and economic development policy. He has written six books, forty articles, and fifteen book chapters on these topics. His most recent book, Regulation in the States (Brookings Institution Press, 2004), is a comprehensive analysis of state regulatory policy. He also coauthored Deregulating Freight Transportation: Delivering the Goods for the AEI Press in 1995.

Peter J. Wallison joined AEI in January 1999 as a resident fellow and as co-director of AEI’s program on financial market deregulation. He previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department's efforts to deal with the debt held by less developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.

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