Ann Pettifor

Biography

Ann Pettifor is best known for her leadership of Jubilee 2000 - a worldwide campaign to cancel approximately $100 billion of debts owed by 42 of the poorest countries. She was also one of the first to predict the credit crunch in her 2003 book, The Real World Economic Outlook and is a member of the Labour Party’s Economic Advisory Committee.

A fellow, and former head of research, at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), Ann’s work has covered international finance, the effects of globalisation and sustainable development. The NEF have worked with numerous NGOs, the Global Fund for Aids, the British, Nigerian, Guyanese, Ethiopian and Norwegian governments, and the Queen of Jordan. Ann is also a Director of the Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME) network which aims to explain and engage various audiences with issues of economics, policy and ideas.

Despite some signs of economic recovery, Ann believes that many Western economies have failed to learn from the 1930s (and Japan in the 90s). She maintains that the lesson of these recessions is the need for a carefully sequenced adjusting of monetary policy, debt management and fiscal policy. Until private output fully returns, there should be still greater public spending. She also examines the political and economic effects that globalisation has had in creating social and financial divides in populations in both developed and developing countries.

Ann is co-author of the Green New Deal - a set of policies to deal with the threats posed by credit crunch, ‘peak oil’ and climate change. As well as an economic outlook, she also considers the economics of sustainability and desperate need for long-term strategies within businesses and government. She contributes regularly to the Huffington Post, and is now advising a group of churches on their own climate campaign, Operation Noah.