Rachel Payne

Clark Gascoigne, +1 202 293 0740 ext. 222

ASAP, GFI, and Yale Inaugurate Prize Honoring Nobel-Winning Economist Amartya Sen

2014 Contest Solicited Essays on Connection between Illicit Flows, Global Poverty, Inequality

WASHINGTON, DC / NEW HAVEN, CT – Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), Global Financial Integrity (GFI), and the Yale Global Justice Program awarded the inaugural Amartya Sen Prize over the weekend to Max Everest-Phillips, Hamish Russell, and Gillian Brock for their essays on illicit financial flows, poverty, and inequality.

Established in 2014 by ASAP, GFI, and Yale University’s Global Justice Program, the annual prize is named in honor of Amartya Sen, the Nobel-winning economist whose work has shown how the rigor of economic thinking can be brought to bear on normative and practical questions of great human significance.

“This was a very interesting conference on a critically important subject – with a number of fine contributions, including two powerful papers from the prize winners,” said Dr. Sen, who delivered remarks at the conference on Saturday at Yale where the prize was awarded.

The 2014 Amartya Sen Prize Contest solicited original essays on how illicit financial flows relate to global poverty and inequality. Such essays could be empirical, analyzing, for instance, the distributional impact of illicit financial flows on the evolution of poverty or inequality; they could be normative, reflecting perhaps on who bears what responsibilities for the adverse effects of illicit financial flows; or they might be practical, defending, for example, a feasible and politically realistic reform idea that could help curtail such outflows.

Mr. Everest-Phillips wrote his essay on tackling illicit financial flows in developing countries over the long term, while Mr. Russell and Dr. Brock co-wrote their essay on the moral responsibilities of tax professionals.

Max Everest-Phillips

An expert in governance, political economy, and public administration, Max Everest-Phillips is the Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Global Centre for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE) in Singapore, a position he has held since July 2013.

Prior to joining GCPSE, Mr. Everest-Phillips was the Director of Governance at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. He began his career in the diplomatic service of the United Kingdom, where he served as Acting Head of Profession Governance & Conflict Group and Senior Governance Adviser in the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and was then Senior Governance Adviser responsible for all of the UK’s research on governance.

In 2007, he was a fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in London, researching on political governance for economic growth and private sector development. Mr. Everest-Phillips holds an MSc in Organization Development from Johns Hopkins, an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Modern History from Oxford University.

Hamish Russell

Hamish Russell is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Born in New Zealand, he completed a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Auckland. Mr. Russell’s main interests are ethics, practical rationality, and political philosophy.

Gillian Brock

Mr. Russell’s co-author, Gillian Brock, is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. A noted global justice scholar, Dr. Brock’s research interests are political philosophy, ethics, and applied ethics. In 2009, she wrote the book Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account, which was published by Oxford University Press. She earned her PhD in Philosophy at Duke University.

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Notes to Editors:

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Click here for more information on the 2014 Amartya Sen Prize Contest.

The prize was officially awarded Saturday, November 8, 2014 at a conference, titled “Justice in Development: Confronting Illicit Financial Flows and Climate Change,” which took place at Yale University and was co-hosted by ASAP, GFI, and the Yale Global Justice Program.

Journalist Contacts:

Clark Gascoigne

Global Financial Integrity

cgascoigne@nullgfintegrity.org

+1 202 293 0740 x222 (Office)

+1 202 815 4029 (Mobile)

Rachel Payne

Academics Stand Against Poverty

rachel@nullacademicsstand.org

+1 413 884-5469

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Global Financial Integrity (GFI) is a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization, which promotes transparency in the international financial system as a means to global development.

Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) is an international association focused on helping researchers and teachers enhance their impact on poverty.

The Yale Global Justice Program unites an interdisciplinary group of scholars with the aim of taking morality seriously in shaping foreign policy and in negotiating transnational institutional arrangements. The program has a special interest in the evolution of severe poverty and its relationship with public health. The program is based at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University.