The economist Heiner Flassbeck has been intensively involved in economic and monetary issues for decades. As State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance from 1998 to 1999, he campaigned for more effective regulation of the financial markets. Since January 2013, Heiner Flassbeck has been Director of Flassbeck-Economics, a consultancy for global macroeconomic questions. Professor Dr. Heiner Flassbeck studied economics at the University of Saarland (Saarbrücken) from 1971 to 1975. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics at the Free University of Berlin in 1987 on a dissertation on money, credit, business cycle theory and the philosophy of science. In 2005, he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg. Flassbeck was a researcher at the German Council of Economic Experts in Wiesbaden from 1976 to 1980. He worked as a researcher at the Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn until 1986 and served as chief macroeconomist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin from 1988 and 1998. Flassbeck became State Secretary (Vice Minister) in the Federal German Ministry of Finance from 1998 to 1999 (under Oskar Lafontaine). He was responsible for international affairs, the EU and the relations with the IMF. Flassbeck worked for the UNCTAD in Geneva from 2000 onwards. From 2003 to 2012, he was Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies. He was the principal author of the team that prepared UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report. The unit was specialised in macroeconomics, exchange rate policies and international finance. He was observer at the G20 Finance Ministers meetings from 2010 to 2012.