RICHARD A. WERNER is Professor of International Banking at the University of Southampton, UK. Previously, he was Reader at Southampton and Assistant Professor of Economics at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He has spent over a decade in Asia, including at the Bank of Japan, the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank, and as Chief Economist of Jardine Fleming Securities (Asia) Ltd and asset allocator of a major pension fund. He is much quoted in the media and has published widely on financial markets and monetary economics. In 2003, he was selected as Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos.