Government versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State

An economist of international renown, Vito Tanzi served for 20 years as Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC with which he was affiliated for nearly three decades. He also taught at George Washington and American Universities. Dr Tanzi is the author of 14 books, including Public Spending in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2000, with Ludger Schuknecht) and Inflation and the Personal Income Tax (Cambridge University Press, 1980) and he has edited 11 other titles with contributions. A former Undersecretary for Economics and Finance of the Italian Government, he was President of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) from 1990 to 1994 and is the IIPF's Honorary President. Dr Tanzi is known for the Tanzi effect, or Olivera-Tanzi effect, which refers to the diminished real value of tax revenues in periods of high inflation due to collection lags. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Stanford Research Institute. Dr Tanzi received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1967. He holds five honorary degrees.