Background
HELLEINER, Gerald Karl was born in 1936 in St Polten, Austria.
HELLEINER, Gerald Karl was born in 1936 in St Polten, Austria.
Bachelor of Arts (Political Science & Economics) University Toronto, 1958. Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy Yale University, 1960, 1962.
Instructor, Assistant Prof, Yale University, 1961-1962, 1962-1965. Association Research Fellow, Nigerian Institute, Institution Social and Economics Research, University Ibadan, Nigeria, 1962-1963. Association Professor, University Toronto, 1965-1968.
Director, Economics Research Bureau, University College, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1966-1968. Visiting Fellow, Institute, Institution Development Studies, University.Sussex, 1961-1962,1975, Queen Elizabeth House, University Oxford, 1979. Research Fellow, Internat, Development Research Centre, 1975-1976.
Professor of Economics, University Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since 1968. Editorial Board, International Organization, Development and Change.
(Book by Helleiner, Gerald K)
I began my career with primary concern for the development problems of tropical Africa. Inevitably that led me to research on agricultural economics and the performance of government-owned marketing boards in Nigeria. Later, in Tanzania I was similarly motivated but now within the context of a State with socialist aspirations.
My interest in African economic development has remained firm but, from a Canadian base, it made more sense to shift my primary focus to broader questions of international and development economics.
I have sought to elucidate aspects of the interrelationships between industrialised countries and the developing ones, and to do so without the theoretical preconceptions and patronising tones of much of the current literature in the ‘North’ or the shrill rhetoric of some of that of the ‘South’. Facts and logic are likely to generate the ‘best’ policy outcomes for both the developing countries and the world. In this connection I have consulted for the World Bank, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, International Labour Office, the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, the United Nations Development Programme, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Brandt Commission, and the governments of individual developing countries.
In recent years my work has encompassed analysis of transnational corporate productivity, international financial flows and the role of the International Monetary Fund.
I have been particularly concerned with the wider implications of the growth of intra-firm international trade. In an approach to a more equitable, efficient
and sustainable world it now seems to me that an understanding of politics is at least as important as economic analysis. Accordingly, I have developed a new interest in theories of public policy and in the role of information.