Giovanni Andrea Cornia is currently professor of economics at the University of Florence. Before this, he was the Director of the World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) in Helsinki (1995-2000), and Director of the Economic and Social Policy Research Programme at the International Child Development Centre (the world-wide research centre of UNICEF) in Florence (1989-95). He was also the Chief Economist at UNICEF Headquarters in New York (1981-89) and held research positions at UNCTAD, UNECE (with a long spell at ECLAC in Santiago) and the Economic Studies Centre of