Biographical note

Philippe Aghion is the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the economics of growth. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the so-called Schumpeterian Growth paradigm which was subsequently used to analyze the design of growth policies and the role of the state in the growth process. In 2001, Philippe Aghion received the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45. Mathias Dewatripont is Director of the National Bank of Belgium and Professor of Economnics at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Patrick Legros studied in France and in the US and started his career at Cornell University. He is currently Full Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and a fellow of its research center ECARES. His main current research interests are the development of an "Organizational Industrial Organization ", for which he receives an ERC Advanced Grant and the design of re-matching (like affirmative action) policies in the presence of rigidities in the allocation of surplus in schools or firms. He is currently the managing editor of the Journal of Industrial Economics and a member of the European Advisory Group on Competition Policy at the European Commission. Luigi Zingales' research interests span from corporate governance to financial development, from political economy to the economic effects of culture. Currently, he has been involved in developing the best interventions to cope with the aftermath of the financial crisis. He also co-developed the Financial Trust Index, which is designed to monitor the level of trust that Americans have toward their financial system. In addition to holding his position at Chicago Booth, Zingales is currently a faculty research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow for the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a fellow of the European Governance Institute. He is also the director of the American Finance Association and an editorialist for Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian equivalent of the Financial Times. Zingales also serves on the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, which has been examining the legislative, regulatory, and legal issues affecting how public companies function.