This event is open to the public with photo ID.
Feb 23, 2011 12:00 PM - 1:45 PM20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor, IPK Main Conference Room
From the nightly news to the floor of Congress, a battle is being waged between Republicans and Democrats over federal, state and local finances. Elections have been won or lost, and even the Tea Party formed on this lightening rod issue. We're consistently told that Republicans oppose public-debt taking at all costs, while Democrats view debt-taking as a necessity if we are to reboot the economy. However, if we refocus our attention on how politicians - Red and Blue - actually spend public money rather than what they say, then a very different story emerges. This talk presents findings based upon a multi-year political analysis of traditional and innovative public finance vehicles - tax-exempt bonds, tax-credit bonds, private-activity bonds, public-private-partneships, credits, guarantees.
Michael Likosky, JD DPhil (Oxford Law), directs the Center on Law and Public Finance at the Social Science Research Council and is also Senior Fellow at New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge. He was previously a tenured professor in International Economic Law at the University of London, and has held visiting posts and fellowships at Oxford Law, NYU Law, University of Bonn, Fordham Law, and University of Wisconsin Law. Likosky specializes in the areas of foreign direct investment, public-private-partnerships and economic growth strategies with international expertise in a number of sectors including high technology, infrastructure, clean energy, oil and gas, metals and minerals, broadcasting, and manufacturing.
Likosky is an Expert to the OECD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé. He is the lead international legal expert in infrastructure, energy and extractives financing to the United Nations World Investment Reports and also a contributor to its World Development Report. Likosky advises international organizations (OECD, UN, IDLO), government officials (Members of US Senate and House, State Agency Heads and Treasurers), leading investors (D. E. Shaw, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Prudential), major firms (ABC, CBS, Deloitte, ESPN, NBC), and non-profits (Ford Foundation, United States Civilian Research & Development Foundation, Amnesty International, Transparency International, Trades Union Congress). His work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Markle Foundation, Arts and Humanities Research Council, World Affairs and the Global Economy, and Institute for a New
Reflection on Governance.
He has written five books on international infrastructure, energy, and high technology growth strategies: Transnational Legal Processes (Cambridge University Press); Law, Infrastructure and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press); Privatizing Development (Martinus Nijhoff); and The Silicon Empire (Ashgate). His most recent book, Obama’s Bank: Financing a Durable New Deal (Cambridge University Press, 2010), describes the Obama Administration’s public-private-partnership-based approach to infrastructure and clean energy investment, and offers lessons for it based upon thirty years of international experience with partnership projects.
Likosky has been a featured speaker on international infrastructure, energy and economic growth strategies to groups such as US Chamber of Commerce, Project Finance International, International Project Finance Association, Infrastructure Investor, World Free Zone Convention, the Institute for International Communications, and the American Society for Civil Engineers. He is a blogger at Huffington Post, and his work appears in outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bond Buyer, BNA, American Banker, Guardian UK, Los Angeles Times. He is a regular contributor to the Oxford Amnesty International Lectures.