AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

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TRACK 1 LAND MARKETS Ayal Kimhi is Associate Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Management of the Hebrew University. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago (1991). He served as the Director of Research of the Center for Agricultural Economic Research, was a member of the Editorial Board of Agricultural Economics, and worked as a consultant for the World Bank on various projects. Since 2006 he serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Rural Cooperation. He published more than 30 articles in refereed journals. His research spans the fi elds of Family Economics, Agricultural Economics, and Development Economics.

Joseph Gogodze was born 1951 in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1974 graduated faculty of mathematics, Tbilisi State University. Acted as a researcher in various scientifi c institutions. In 1980 took academic degree of candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in The Institute of Mathematics of USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow. The main area of activities and scientifi c explorations - optimal control, mathematical modeling, economic statistics, practical sociological and marketing research. Between 1991-1996, Gogodze occupied prominent positions in The Georgian State Department for Statistics. Recently he is a director of the research company “Conjuncture Research Center Ltd” and consults various projects carried out in Georgia.

Iddo Kan is a lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His activities are related to the scientifi c areas of environmental and resource economics, agricultural economics, political economics and soil and water sciences. His expertise is in integrating natural processes into economic analyses, aiming at exploring systems involving environmental impacts with the objective to characterize management strategies and policies under optimal or equilibrium conditions. His research topics include irrigation and drainage management, solid waste disposal, biological pest-control, evaluation of climate change impacts and external costs and water pricing in political economic systems.

Zhu Qian is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban and Regional Science at Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A & M University. He obtained his M.A. (Planning) from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He was a land use planner in China before came to the US. His recent paper on China’s urban land reform won Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies’ 2006 Best Essay on Urban and Regional Themes by Young Authors.

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PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

TRACK 2 INFRASTRUCTURE José Ramón Xilotl Soberón, student at Licenciatura en Urbanismo at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM). He is still exploring the open fi eld that is urban planning—which has taken him from the study of precarious or informal settlements to public policy, and currently to aesthetics and the spatial manifestations of aesthetic theories. He has presented his research on political ideology and policy-making for urban mega projects at a national congress in Mexico, Congreso Nacional de Escuelas de Urbanismo, Planeación Territorial, y Regional, 2005, and led an international workshop on precarious settlements (World Planning School’s Congress 2006).

TRACK 3 TECHNOLOGY Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Public and International Aff airs at the University of Pittsburgh. She specializes in urban and regional economic development and international development, and has served as a research assistant in various projects including brownfi elds redevelopment, aff ordable housing and disaster management.

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PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT