Dr. Pervez Tahir

Dr Pervez Tahir completed his PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge in 1990 and held the Joan Robinson Memorial Lectureship in the same year. Currently Senior Visiting Fellow at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad, he just completed a three-year term as Chairman of the Bank of Punjab, Lahore. Before that, he had a long career in the Government of Pakistan, starting in 1974 as the Deputy Economic Adviser of Ministry of Finance and rising to be the Chief Economist of the Planning Commission in 2000. He retired as Managing Director of the National Energy Conservation Centre. In 2007-08, he served as Mahbub ul Haq Chair at Government College University, where he received his Master and worked as a lecturer in 1971-72. The Forman Christian College University, Lahore, appointed him Professor/Head of Department of Economics in 2009.

Before joining Government, he was the Economic Correspondent of the Pakistan Times and Editor of the weekly, Punjab Punch. Presently, he is a columnist for the Express Tribune. Author of three and editor of three books, the latest just brought out by Palgrave Macmillan of London and New York, he has published numerous journal and newspaper articles at home and abroad. He is widely travelled and a well-known speaker at the international and national conference circuits and discussant at TV talk shows. Universities, specialized institutes, School of Public Policy, National Defence University, civil society organizations, embassies and business associations frequently invite him to speak on critical economic and development issues.