ANGARA TO LAUNCH FIRST OF ITS KIND THINK
TANK FEATURING INT'L LAW, ECONOMICS EXPERTS

Senator Edgardo J. Angara, the longest serving lawmaker in the post-EDSA Senate, has revealed his retirement plan: The Angara Centre for Law and Economics, the Philippines' first legal and economic policy think tank.

The Angara Centre aims to raise the standards of academic research and policy studies by tapping the growing ranks of internationally trained Filipino scholars and a network of international law and economics experts.

"The Angara Centre is a premier think tank that is Filipino at heart, global in outlook, grounded in research, and oriented toward innovation," Angara said.

The Angara Centre will be launched on August 3 (Friday) through the Inaugural Conference on Globalization, Innovation, and Economic Growth that will engage some of the world's top economists, lawyers and scholars.

The plenary speaker is Dr. Tyler Cowen, ranked by the Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the Most Influential Thinkers of 2011. He holds the Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics and the position of General Director of the Mercatus Center at the George Mason University in Washington.

Cowen, dubbed "foodie economist", writes on a variety of topics from political philosophy and popular economics, to the economics of culture and ethnic dining.

Also headlining the conference is Dr. John V.C. Nye, the Frederic Bastiat Chair in Political Economy of the Mercatus Center and Executive Director of the Angara Centre.

Dr. Nye, a prominent figure in the field of new institutional economics, is a highly sought-after speaker and researcher, and has been invited to consult in Moscow, Latin America, and here in the Philippines with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and President Benigno Aquino III, who was his schoolmate in high school at the Ateneo de Manila University.

They will be joined by other top-ranked experts on law and economics from Australia, Hong Kong, France, Philippines, Spain, and the United States. (Please refer to the attached program.)

"Now is an auspicious time to launch the Centre. President Aquino is projecting a strong economic takeoff for the Philippines--and the Centre is in a position to contribute toward making growth sustainable," Angara said.