Michael Arbuckle has over 20 years experience in New Zealand as the National Manager Fisheries Operations at the Ministry of Fisheries and the Chief Executive of a leading private company. At present, he is the Senior Fisheries Specialist at the World Bank in Washington DC, with a special interest in fisheries in the developing countries.
Ragnar Arnason, born in 1949, graduated in economics and politics from the University of Iceland and in economics and econometrics from the London School of Economics before completing his Ph.D. in economics from the University of British Columbia. A Professor of Fisheries Economics at the University of Iceland, he is the author of many academic papers on fisheries management, published in peer-reviewed journals like European Journal of Operational Research, Natural Resource Modeling and Marine Resource Economics. He edited (with Hannes H. Gissurarson) Individual Transferable Quotas in Theory and Practice in 1999 and (with Birgir Thor Runolfsson) Advances in Rights Based Fishing: The Role of Property in Fisheries Management in 2008. He has served on the supervisory board of Iceland’s Central Bank since 2009. In 2012, he wrote a long and very critical review for parliament (in Icelandic) on the legal proposals of the present government about changes in the Icelandic ITQ system.
Brian Carney holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. in philosophy from Boston University. He worked as a sternman on a lobster boat in Maine, and in the Innovations in American Government Program at Harvard University, before joining the Wall Street Journal in 2000, where he is now a member of the editorial board. He received the Frederic Bastiat Prize for journalism in 2003 and the Gerald Loeb Prize for economic journalism in 2009.
Michael De Alessi holds an M.A. in marine policy from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, an M.S. in management science and engineering and a B.A. in economics from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from the University of California at Berkeley. His doctoral thesis was on fisheries management in New Zealand. He is at present a post-doctoral fellow of the Bill Lane Center at Berkeley and was previously a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles. He has published widely on environmental policy in journals and newspapers and written a book for the IEA in London, Fishing for Solutions, in 2003.
Thrainn Eggertsson, born in 1942, graduated in economics from Manchester University before completing his Ph.D. in economics from Ohio State University. A Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland and the author of several scholarly books and papers, especially on institutional economics, he has also served at a Global Distinguished Professor at New York University and been a Visiting Scholar at several universities and academic institutes. His books in English include Imperfect Institutions: Possibilities and Limits of Reform from 2004 (translated into Icelandic in 2007) and Economic Behavior and Institutions from 1990. His paper, “The Subtle Art of Major Institutional Reform: Introduction of Property Rights in the Icelandic Fisheries”, was published in Role of Institutions in Rural Policies and Agricultural Markets in 2004.
Hannes H. Gissurarson, born in 1953, graduated in history and philosophy from the University of Iceland before completing his D.Phil. in politics at the University of Oxford. A Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland and the author of many books, he served on the supervisory board of Iceland’s Central Bank 2001–2009 and on the board of the Mont Pelerin Society 1998–2004. He is the academic director of the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth. He was (with Ragnar Arnason) the editor of Individual Transferable Quotas in Theory and Practice in 1999, wrote the book Overfishing: Lessons from Iceland in 2000 (which can be downloaded from here), published “The Politics of Enclosures with Special Reference to the Icelandic ITQ System” in Use of Property Rights in Fisheries in 2000, “Iceland’s ITQ System and the Problem of Political Acceptability” in Evolving Property Rights in Marine Fisheries in 2005, and “The Politics of Property Rights” in Advances in Rights Based Fishing in 2008. He also wrote much on justice in initial allocation of quotas in a book on political philosophy in Icelandic, Fiskar undir steini (Fishes under Stones) 2001.
Helgi D. A. Gretarsson, born in 1977, graduated in law from the University of Iceland. He was the World Junior Champion in Chess in 1994 and has after that been a Grandmaster in Chess. He has published several papers about legal problems of fisheries management, including “Allocation of Fishing Harvest Rights in Iceland and Norway: The Development Since 1990” in Stjornmal og stjornsysla in 2011, “Allocation of Demersal Harvest Rights in Iceland” in Arctic Review on Law and Politics in 2010, and a paper in 2010 about legal aspects of the dispute between Iceland and the EU on the utilisation of the mackerel stock.
Rognvaldur Hannesson, born in 1943, graduated in economics and then received his Ph.D. in fisheries economics from the University of Lund. He taught at the universities of Lund, Tromso and Bergen before he became Professor of fisheries economics at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in 1983. He has published several books and scholarly papers on fisheries economics. He edited (with Ragnar Arnason and others) the book The Cost of Fisheries Management in 2003, published “Aquaculture and Fisheries” in Marine Policy in 2003, „The Icelandic Fisheries and the Future of the Icelandic Economy“ Competitiveness within the Global Fisheries in 2003, „The Privatization of the Oceans“ in Evolving Property Rights in Marine Fisheries in 2005, was a co-author and co-editor of Climate Change and the Economics of the World’s Fisheries: Examples of Small Pelagic Stocks in 2006 and the author of the book Privatization of the Oceans in 2010.
Gunnar Haraldsson, born in 1968, graduated in economics and in fisheries economics from the University of Iceland and the University of Toulouse before completing his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Toulouse. He worked at the Institute of Economic Studies at the University of Iceland, at the National Economic Institute and at the Prime Minister’s Office before he became a Senior Fisheries Policy Analyst at the OECD in 2010. He was the Chairman of the Board of the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland in 2009–2010.
Asgeir Jonsson, born in 1970, graduated in economics from the University of Iceland, before completing a master’s degree and a doctorate at the University of Indiana. He worked at the Institute of Economic Studies at the University of Iceland 2000–2004, and was an economist at Kaupthing Bank in 2004–2011. He is now assistant professor in economics at the University of Iceland and an economic analyst at the financial company Gamma. He was editor of economic journal Visbending 1995–1996 and is now the editor of an Icelandic journal on business and economic affair. He has published several papers, not only on economics, but also Icelandic economic history. His book on the fall of the banks, from an insider’s perspective, Why Iceland? How One of the World’s Smallest Countries Became the Meltdown’s Biggest Casualty, came out in 2009.
Gudrun Larusdottir, born in 1933, has since 1970, with her husband, run a fishing company, Stalskip in Hafnarfjordur. She and her husband were “The Men of the Year in the Icelandic Economy” in 1993, and Gudrun Larusdottir received a special prize from the Icelandic Fisheries Fair in 2011 for her contribution to the Icelandic fisheries.
Arni M. Mathiesen, born in 1958, was trained as a veterinarian at the University of Edinburgh and studied fish pathology at Stirling University. He practiced as a veterinarian in Iceland before being elected to the Parliament for the Independence Party in 1991. He was Minister of Fisheries 1999–2005 and Minister of Finance 2005–2009. While Minister of Fisheries he set TACs, Total Allowable Catches, in each stock in the Icelandic waters cautiously. During his time of Minister of Finance he reduced income taxes both on companies and individuals, with the long-term result that tax revenues increased, as the tax bases grew. He has been Assistant Director of FAO in Rome since 2010, in charge of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. In 2010 he published a book in Icelandic (with the assistance of journalist Thorhallur Josepsson) about his last years in the Ministry of Finance and the fall of the Icelandic banks, Arni Matt: fra bankahruni til byltingar (Arni Matt: From Bank Collapse to Political Upheaval).
Asta Moller, born in 1957, graduated in general nursing and in public administration from the University of Iceland. She taught nursing at the University, managed educational activities at the Borgarspitalinn hospital and ran a private health company, before she became member of parliament for the Independence Party in 1999. Shortly after leaving parliament in 2009, she became the managing director of the Institute of Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland.
Rakel Olsen, born in 1942, runs the fishing and fish processing company Agustsson, which operates both in Stykkisholmur in Iceland and in Denmark.
Stefania Oskarsdottir, born in 1962, received her MA and Ph.D. in politics from Purdue University in Indiana in the United States. She did teaching and research in politics at Purdue University in 1987–92, and taught at the University of Iceland 1996–2002. She was for a number of years a specialist in the Prime Minister’s Office and at the Social Science Institute at the University of Iceland, and became an assistant professor of politics at the University of Iceland in 2011. She has published articles in Icelandic and foreign learned journals.
Birgir Thor Runolfsson, born in 1962, graduated in economics from Lewis & Clark College and George Mason University before completing his Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University. An Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland, he has published many papers on fisheries management and public choice, including „Fencing the Oceans: A Rights-Based Approach to Privatising Fisheries“ in Policy 1998. He edited (with Ragnar Arnason) Advances in Rights Based Fishing: Extending the Role of Property in Fisheries Management in 2008.
