"The two central dangers that any society faces are disorder and dictatorship. By disorder we mean the risk to individuals and their property of private expropriation in the form of murder, theft, violation of agreements, torts, monopoly pricing, and so on. [...] By dictatorship we mean the risk to individuals and their property of expropriation by the state and its agents in the form of murder, taxation, violation of property, and so on."
Simeon Djankov is Chairman of the Fiscal Council in Bulgaria. He has 30 years of experience in public finance. His career has been primarily focused on studying and practicing public finance, and he worked for 18 years at the World Bank.
He later spent several years with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and at universities. Since November 2015, Dyankov has been Director for Policy of the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics. Previously he was Rector of the New Economic School in Russia and a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
He served as Bulgaria's Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from 2009 to 2013, and as Chairman of the Board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Over the years, Simeon Djankov has advised various international organizations and governments on public finance management.
He is the founder of the World Bank's publishing Women, Business and the Law. He is author of Inside the Euro Crisis: An Eyewitness Account and of the World Development Report 2002, co-author of Europe's Growth Challenge, and Director of World Development Report 2019. He is also co editor of The Great Rebirth: Lessons from the Victory of Capitalism over Communism and of Covid-19 in Developing Economies.
