About the Speakers

Stephan Haggard  is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies; director, Korea-Pacific Program; and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He works on the political economy of developing countries, with a particular interest in Asia and the Korean peninsula. His current research focuses on the relationship between inequality, democratization, and authoritarianism in developing countries. Haggard has written extensively on the political economy of North Korea with Marcus Noland, including Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (2007) and Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (2011). Haggard and Noland co-author the “North Korea: Witness to Transformation” blog at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Haggard is the editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned his PhD from UC Berkeley.

Thomas Byrne   (moderator) joined The Korea Society as its President in August of 2015. He came to the Society from Moody's Investor Services, where he was Regional Manager, Spokesperson, and Director of Analysis for the Sovereign Risk Group in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Before moving to Moody's in 1996, he was the Senior Economist of the Asia Department at the Institute of International Finance in Washington DC. Mr. Byrne has an MA degree in International Relations with an emphasis on economics from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before his graduate work, he served in South Korea for three years as a US Peace Corps volunteer.

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