Robert Triffin is best known for his contributions to world monetary reform and regional monetary integration. He played a leading role in the conception and negotiation of the European Payments Union and of the European Monetary System. He continues to cooperate in the studies aimed at promoting the evolution of the EMS toward the full Economic and Monetary Union envisaged as an ultimate goal by its creators and by the Action Committee for the United States of Europe of Jean Monnet, with whom he collaborated closely for many years.

Born in Flobecq, Belgium, on October 5, 1911, he has taught at Louvain, Harvard, Yale, Geneva, Louvain-la-Neuve, amongst others, and served as staff member, or consultant, with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Council of Economic Advisers of the President, the European Recovery Administration, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Economic Commissions for Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia and the Far East, the European Economic Community, as well as various central banks in Latin America and elsewhere.

Among his books, the best known are: Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory (Harvard University Press, 1942), Europe and the Money Muddle (id., 1957) and Gold and the Dollar Crisis (id., 1960), translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Norwegian. In all, Dr. Triffin has authored or co-authored more than 400 books and articles.

Dr. Triffin has received under-graduate and graduate degrees from the University of Louvain and a M. A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees from a large number of universities and governments. He is currently associated with the Institut de Recherches Economiques, Service de Conjoncture, Universite Catholique de Louvain, and resides in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

The Intermixture of Politics and Economics in the World Monetary Scandal: Diagnosis and Prescription Acceptance Paper,the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy (1988)

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