Speaker biographies

Claude E. Barfield is a resident scholar and the Cdirector of science, and technology policy studies Cat AEI. He is the author or editor of a number of books on trade and science policy, including Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization (AEI Press, 2001). In 1999, he co-authored Tiger by the Tail: China and the World Trade Organization (AEI Press) with Mark Groombridge. Before joining AEI, he served in the Ford administration, on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and as a co-staff director of the President's Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.

Lael Brainard is vice president and director of the Global Economy Development Center and holds the New Century Chair in International Economics at the Brookings Institution. Ms. Brainard served as deputy national economic adviser and chair of the Deputy Secretaries Committee on International Economics during the Clinton administration. As deputy director of the National Economic Council, she helped build a new White House organization to address global economic challenges such as the Asian financial crisis and China’s World Trade Organization entry. As the U.S. sherpa to the G8, she helped shape the 2000 G8 Development Summit that for the first time included leaders of the poorest nations and laid the foundations for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Previously, Ms. Brainard served as associate professor of applied economics at MIT Sloan School of Management. She has also worked at McKinsey & Co., advising corporate clients on strategic challenges and microenterprise in West Africa. Most recently, she was co-editor of Offshoring White Collar Work (Brookings Press, 2006), editor of Transforming the Development Landscape: the Role of the Private Sector (Brookings Press, 2006) and Security by Other Means (Brookings Press, 2006), and coauthor of The Other War: Global Poverty and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (Brookings Press, 2004).

Christopher C. DeMuth has been the president of AEI since 1986. He was previously the managing director of Lexecon Inc., administrator for regulatory affairs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, executive director of the Task Force on Regulatory Relief during the Reagan administration, lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and the law firm of Sidley & Austin. Mr. DeMuth is the chairman of two family businesses. His articles on government regulation and other subjects have appeared in The Public Interest, the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

James K. Glassman is a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in issues involving economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and co-founder of TechCentralStation.com, a for-profit 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 Barrons. 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, including positions 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.

Jeffrey J. Schott joined the Institute for International Economics (IIE) in 1983, where he is a senior fellow working on international trade policy and economic sanctions. Schott was also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University in 1994 and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University from 1986 to 1988. He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1982 to 1983 and an official of the U.S. Treasury Department in international trade and energy policy from 1974 to 1982. During the Tokyo round of multilateral trade negotiations, he was a member of the U.S. delegation that negotiated the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) subsidies code. Since January 2003, he has been a member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the U.S. government. Most recently, Mr. Schott coauthored NAFTA Revisited: Achievements and Challenges (IIE, 2005) and edited Free Trade Agreements: US Strategies and Priorities (IIE, 2004).

The Honorable Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) was elected to Congress in 1978 and represents California’s Twenty-Second Congressional District, which covers most of Kern and San Luis Obispo Counties and part of Los Angeles County, including the cities of Bakersfield, Taft, Tehachapi, Arroyo Grande, Paso Robles, Lancaster, and Ridgecrest. He was elected chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in January 2001. In regard to trade policy, Congressman Thomas was a chief architect of the Trade Act of 2002, which restored trade promotion authority for the president. This landmark achievement led to the enactment of free trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Australia, Morocco, Central America, and Bahrain. Prior to his election as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Thomas served as chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and in 1998 was appointed administrative chairman of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. Congressman Thomas also served on the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee and was chairman of the House Administration Committee from 1995 to 2001. Before entering Congress, he was a faculty member at Bakersfield Community College and a member of the California State Assembly.

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