Richard Bird

Richard Bird - BA 1958, MA (Columbia 1959), PhD (Columbia 1961)  is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Associate of the International Institute of Business, Rotman School of Management, and Adjunct Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs, all at the University of Toronto.  He is also Distinguished Visiting Professor, Andrew Young School of Public Policy, Georgia State University, Program Advisor to International Tax and Investment Center (Washington), Fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute (Toronto), Adjunct Research Fellow, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University (Melbourne), International Research Fellow, Institute for Fiscal Studies (London), Senior Advisor, International Tax Program, Duke University (Durham), Correspondent, Bulletin of International Taxation, and a member of the Panel of Fiscal Experts, International Monetary Fund (Washington) and the International Advisory Board of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (New Delhi).

Before coming to the University of Toronto (in 1968), he taught at Harvard University and spent several years in Colombia as an advisor of the Ministry of Finance. Subsequently, he was Director of the University of Toronto’s Institute for Policy Analysis (1980-85) and Chief of the Tax Policy Division of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund (1972-74).  From 2001 to 2004, he was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School. At various times he has held visiting positions at the Australian School of Taxation, University of New South Wales (Sydney), Erasmus University (Rotterdam), Monash University (Melbourne), and the Australian National University (Sydney) as well as at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Japan Council of Science (Hitosubashi University and Kobe University of Commerce) and the Indian Council of Social Science.  He has over the years consulted and lectured in dozens of countries under the auspices of many different agencies -- World Bank, International Monetary Fund, OECD, Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Australian Development Advisory Bureau, and various national governments and private consulting firms.  Over the last decade, for example, he has worked in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Ukraine, India, Armenia, China, Egypt, Liberia, Colombia, Korea, the Philippines, Cambodia, and South Africa.  He has written and edited over 30 books and published well over 300 chapters in books and articles in professional journals.  His major research interest is in the fiscal problems of developing countries, and in recent years much of his work has focused on issues of fiscal decentralization as well as on tax policy and tax administration more generally.