David McWilliams
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| David McWilliams | |
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| Born | 1966 |
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| Nationality | Irish  |
| Education | Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and College of Europe, Belgium |
| Occupation | Economist, author, broadcaster[1] |
David McWilliams (born 1966[2]) is an Irish economist. McWilliams has worked with the Central Bank of Ireland, UBS bank, and the Banque Nationale de Paris. More recently, he has become a popular broadcaster and documentary-maker with TV3 and RTÉ, as well as publishing two books, The Pope's Children, and The Generation Game.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Education
McWilliams attended Blackrock College in Dublin. He then graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with a degree in economics, as well as from the College of Europe, Belgium.
[edit] 1990 to 2002
Between 1990 and 1993 he worked as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland. He helped draft the Irish submission to the Maastricht Treaty and also advised the authorities during the exchange rate crisis in the early 1990s.
Between 1993 and 1996 he was a director in the European Economics Department for UBS analysing, advising and investing in all major European economies and markets. At the age of 27 he became the youngest Director at UBS. McWilliams is credited with being the first economist to predict the 1990s boom in Ireland's economy. It is commonly reported that he coined the phrase "Celtic Tiger", but this is untrue. It was first used in a Morgan Stanley report of August 1994.
From 1996 until 1998 he became the head of Emerging Markets Research for Banque Nationale de Paris. From 1999 to 2002, he became a global strategist with a New York-based hedge fund, Rockwest Capital.[3]
[edit] Writing and broadcasting
McWilliams has also had a career as a broadcaster in Ireland. In the mid-1990s he made regular appearances as an economist on CNN, CNBC and the BBC. He presented a current affairs programme called Agenda on TV3 and has also presented that station's coverage of the Irish General Election in 2002. He hosted the breakfast show on NewsTalk 106, a Dublin radio station, from the station's beginning in 2002 until he was replaced by Eamon Dunphy in September 2004. Soon after, McWilliams started presenting The Big Bite, a topical afternoon discussion programme on the television station RTÉ One. He is also a regular columnist in The Sunday Business Post and Irish Independent newspapers. Past articles from the paper are available from his website, as well as his monthly subscription newsletter, The David McWilliams Agenda.
In November 2006 RTÉ One broadcast In Search of the Pope's Children, a three-part series examining the economic and social landscape of modern Ireland. It was presented by David McWilliams and based on his book The Pope's Children. The book has attracted controversy because of claims, published on 29 January 2006 by the newspaper "Ireland on Sunday", that it is based on a book written in 2000 by David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise – The New Upper Class And How They Got There.
McWilliams' next book The Generation Game was launched in mid-September 2007. It focuses on the precarious nature of the predominance of property in the economy of the Republic of Ireland. The book is accompanied with a three-part television documentary series of the same name.
Publisher John Wiley & Sons picked up North American rights to The Pope's Children and published the new edition in the United States in February 2008 with a new foreword.
McWilliams has also hosted Leviathan: Political Cabaret, a live discussion and satire event which has featured at the Electric Picnic festival in 2006 and 2007.
[edit] Popular culture
McWilliams' style and accent, and reputation from Trinity College student days[4] have led many commentators to believe he is the archetypal role model for Paul Howard's Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series of books. Indeed, in O'Carroll-Kelly's Guide to South Dublin he is described as "the Father of Modern Southsiders: he's not only Ireland's cleverest man, but its poshest, too." Others have commentated on his capacity for shameless self-publicity, describing him as the David Beckham of Irish media.[5] In addition McWilliams has been 'twined' with David Caruso by some elements of the Irish media, mostly in reference to Caruso's CSI: Miami character.[6] In 2007, McWilliams was named as a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum.[7]
[edit] Bibliography
- The Generation Game (2007). ISBN 0-7171-4224-8.
- The Pope's Children (2005). ISBN 0-7171-4172-1.
- The Pope's Children (2008). ISBN 978-0-470-22641-4
[edit] References
- ^ Speaker Biography PersonallySpeaking.ie. Retrieved on 13-12-07.
- ^ According to Who's Who. The Sunday Independent newspaper gives a year of 1966 in an article McWilliams is a real self-made man - he invented himself published on 13 November 2006
- ^ Biography Politics.ie. Retrieved on 13-12-07.
- ^ Sunday Tribune profile by Anne-Marie Hourihane, www.tribune.ie: HiCo silver, away! Published on 05-11-06.
- ^ Phoenix Magazine Vol 25, No 2 January 25-Feb 8, 2007, www.phoenix-magazine.com.
- ^ Phoenix Magazine Vol 24, No 3-5
- ^ See: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2007/01/17/world-economic-forum-young-global-leader
