A leading economist with a Washington-based think-tank gave Bermuda's regulatory regime a thumbs up for meeting international standards while not putting unnecessary limits on business.

Dr. Irwin Stelzer (pictured above), who is a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, is well placed to make the observations being the Institute's regulatory studies programme.

He is credited with being one of the top three economists in the US and writes a weekly column for the London Sunday Times.

Recent columns (referred to by Dr. Stelzer as 'economic news updates') have focused on global politics and how the actions (or non-action) of politicians can bear on the global economy.

His most recent 'update' in The London Times this past Sunday looked at how politicians would do well to listen to market talk.

He advised the world's leaders that they would be wise to take on OPEC, tackling anti-trust issues with those who control the bulk of the world's oil production.

The Sunday before Dr. Stelzer took a look at international politics and the anti-American sentiment from leaders in France and Germany, who have opposed the Iraq war. But he said that all of the "geopolitical toing-and-froing", including a brief united front as European and Americans joined to mark the 60-year anniversary of D-Day, had overshadowed developments on the economic front.

Amongst these were the failure of the EU to "rely less on export-led growth, which adds to America's trade deficit, and to take steps to accelerate domestic demand".

Dr. Stelzer pointed out that Japan "was firmly on the path to growth" and that Europe was now the "world's principal laggard".

But politically, he said, "Bush is showing commendable courage by defending free trade as a creator rather than a destroyer of jobs."

He concluded that the actions of President Bush's foes, including political rival Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the presidential race, were working in Mr. Bush's favour in his bid for re-election in November.

Dr. Stelzer is clearly a man who can be critical when he thinks it is warranted, but Bermuda escaped with only praise after he met with Government leaders including Premier Alex Scott and Legislative Affairs Minister Michael Scott last Thursday over dinner.

Prior to joining Hudson Institute in 1998, Dr. Stelzer was resident scholar and director of regulatory policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. In addition to being the US economic and political columnist for The Sunday Times (London), he also writes for The Courier Mail (Australia) and is a contributing editor of The Weekly Standard (a widely-read political magazine credited with having influence on the Bush administration), a member of the publication committee of The Public Interest, and a member of the board of the Regulatory Policy Institute at Oxford University.

Dr. Stelzer was founder of National Economic Research Associates, Inc. (NERA) in 1961 and served as its president until a few years after its sale in 1983 to Marsh & McLennan. He also has served as a managing director of the investment banking firm of Rothschild Inc. and a director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center at Harvard University.

As a consultant to several US and UK industries with a variety of commercial and policy problems, Dr. Stelzer has overseen market strategy, pricing and antitrust issues, and regulatory matters.

His academic career includes teaching appointments at Cornell University, the University of Connecticut, and New York University, and he is an associate membership of Nuffield College, Oxford.

He is a former member of the Litigation and Administrative Practice Faculty of the Practicing Law Institute. He served on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visiting Committee for the Department of Economics, and has been a teaching member of Columbia University's Continuing Legal Education Programs.

Dr. Stelzer received his bachelor and masters degrees from New York University and his doctorate in economics from Cornell University.

He has written extensively on policy issues, such as America's competitive position in the world economy, optimum regulatory policies, the consequences of European integration, and factors affecting and impeding economic growth.

In addition, Dr. Stelzer served as economics editor of the Antitrust Bulletin and is the author of Selected Antitrust Cases: Landmark Decisions; The Antitrust Laws: A Primer; and The United States, a United Europe, and the United Kingdom: Three Characters in Search of a Policy.

He lives in Washington DC with his wife, Cita Stelzer, but said the couple also live "part-time" in London. Mrs. Stelzer is completing work on a book about the late British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.