Shahid Javed Burki (Urdu: شاہد جاوید برکی) is a Pakistani-American professional economist who has served as Vice President of the World Bank and as de facto Finance Minister of Pakistan on a caretaker basis. He has written extensively on economic development and on the political history of Pakistan.
Burki joined the World Bank in 1974 as a Senior Economist and went on to serve in several senior positions. He was the (first) Director of the China Department (1987–1994), making him responsible for managing the World Bank's dialogue with the Chinese authorities and supervising all of the Bank's analytical and lending work in China. He persuaded the World Bank's senior management, in the immediate aftermath of the Chinese authorities' repression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, that the Bank should stay actively engaged with China, a stance challenged at the time by many of the Bank's most powerful shareholder countries. He served as the Regional Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean during 1994–1999. He took a leave of absence from the World Bank to serve in a caretaker role as Pakistan's de facto Finance Minister for 67 days in 1996–1997 (exercising the responsibilities of the Finance Minister without assuming the title). He retired from the World Bank in 1999.
Publications
Burki is the author or editor of several books on Pakistan, including: Pakistan Under Bhutto (1980, Macmillan); Pakistan under the Military: Eleven Years of Zia Ul-Haq (with Craig Baxter, 1991, Westview Press); Pakistan: Fifty Years of Nationhood (1999, Westview Press); A Historical Dictionary of Pakistan (1999, Scarecrow Press); and Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality: Pakistan's Economy under Musharraf, 1999–2006 (2007, Oxford University Press, Karachi). Other publications on development include: A Study of Chinese Communes (1969, Harvard University Press); First Things First (with Paul Streeten, 1981, Oxford University Press); and Transforming Socialist Economies: Lessons from Cuba and Beyond (edited, with Daniel P. Erikson, 2005, Palgrave Macmillan).[3]
Other activities
In the past, Burki has written opinion pieces for a Pakistani newspaper (Dawn). He is currently a frequent contributor of opinion pieces to the Daily Times.[4]
Burki is the Chairman of The Shahid Javed Burki Institute of Public Policy at NetSol (BIPP) in Lahore, Pakistan.[5]
^See Burki's short biography and list of publications at the website of the Peterson Institute for International Economics: "Biography: Shahid Javed Burki". Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.