Contributions to Fondad publications

2007 Global Imbalances and Developing Countries: Remedies for a Failing International Financial System

2006 Global Imbalances and the US Debt Problem: Should Developing Countries Support the US Dollar?

2005 Africa in the World Economy: The National, Regional and International Challenges

2005 Protecting the Poor: Global Financial Institutions and the Vulnerability of Low- Income Countries

2005 Helping the Poor? The IMF and Low- Income Countries

2004 Diversity in Development: Reconsidering the Washington Consensus

2004 HIPC Debt Relief: Myths and Reality

2003 The Crisis that Was Not Prevented: Lessons for Argentina, the IMF, and Globalisation

2000 Reforming the International Financial System: Crisis Prevention and Response

1998 Regulatory and Supervisory Challenges in a New Era of Global Finance

1998 The Policy Challenges of Global Financial Integration

1998 Regional Integration and Multilateral Cooperation in the Global Economy

1996 Regionalism and the Global Economy: The Case of Africa

1993 The Pursuit of Reform: Global Finance and the Developing Countries

1992 Fragile Finance: Rethinking the International Monetary System

Other publications by author

2009 "Why should we have listened better to Robert Triffin?"

speech given at 7-8 May 2009 conference in Louvain-la-Neuve

Back Network

Jan Joost Teunissen (1948) is the founder and director of the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD). He started his career in 1973 as a social scientist and freelance journalist in Chile. Seeing his plan to work in Chile's agrarian reform and rural development aborted by the coup d'état of 11 September 1973, he engaged himself in activities aimed at the return of democracy in Chile and other dictatorships, focusing on economic boycott as a political instrument.

As a researcher and journalist he gained useful insights in public finance and private financial markets as well as the politics of international economic relations. He forged links with academics, politicians, journalists and high-level policymakers in various parts of the world.

In 1982, he lived again for seven months in Latin America and interviewed a number of economists about the world economic order and the emerging international debt crisis. Back in the Netherlands and working with the international think tank The Transnational Institute, he stimulated discussions on the origins and solutions to the debt crisis of the 1980s.In his view, the basic cause of the debt crisis was a malfunctioning international monetary system based on the US dollar as the key currency - see his "The International Monetary Crunch: Crisis or Scandal?".

In 1985, he visited Robert Triffin in Louvain-la-Neuve and discussed with him the idea of creating an international forum that would stimulate discussions among academics and policymakers about international monetary reform and a resolution of the world debt crisis. Triffin was a warm supporter of his plan and with Triffin’s help and that of Jan Tinbergen, Johannes Witteveen, Jan Pronk and others he established FONDAD in 1987.

He is a member of the Board of La Fondation internationale Robert Triffin.

He has authored and co-authored many books and articles on a wide range of issues including international economics and development. He is married to Dutch writer and painter Aafke Steenhuis and they have two adult kids. Books he has co-authored with Aafke Steenhuis can be found on her website under "boeken".