Paul Sheard

Dr. Paul Sheard, a noted Australian-American economist and policy-watcher based in New York, is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling business book, The Power of Money: How Governments and Banks Create Money and Help Us All Prosper (Matt Holt Books). Known for his ability to see the forest and the trees, Sheard speaks frequently on economic and policy issues at events around the world and in the media.

Sheard cut his teeth as a markets economist in Tokyo covering Japan’s “lost decades” and then, as global chief economist of Lehman Brothers in New York, he had a front-row seat at the global financial crisis. Most recently Research Fellow and M-RCBG Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and, before that, Vice Chairman of S&P Global, Sheard held global chief economist positions at S&P Global, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services, and Nomura Securities, He was Japan Strategist and then Head of Japan Equity Investments at Baring Asset Management. Earlier, Sheard was Lecturer in Economics at the Australian National University (ANU) and Osaka Gas International Cooperation Associate Professor of Economics at Osaka University, and was Visiting Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Foreign Visiting Scholar at the Bank of Japan.

Sheard has been a member of several World Economic Forum expert councils. He was appointed by two prime ministers to serve on advisory committees of the Japanese Government and was a member of the oversight board of the Japanese Government’s Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry. He was a non-executive director of the major Japanese financial services company, ORIX Corporation, and is Executive Advisor to the Group CEO of Sompo, a leading Japanese insurance group. A member of the Bretton Woods Committee, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of New York, and the National Committee on US-China Relations, Sheard sits on the board of the Foreign Policy Association.

Author or editor of five books and numerous academic articles, Sheard’s 1997 book in Japanese, The Crisis of Main Bank Capitalism: How Japanese-style Management Will Change with the “Big Bang” won the Suntory-Gakugei Prize in the Economics–Politics Division and was followed in 2000 by another book in Japanese, Mega Corporate Restructuring. In 2006, Sheard was recognized by Advance as one of a 100 Leading Global Australians. Sheard received a BA (Hons) and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Monash University and a Master of Economics and PhD in Japanese Economy from the ANU.