Chris Edwards is an external research associate at the University of East Anglia. He retired in 1997 after over 30 years of teaching, research and consultancy within the School and the Overseas Development Group. He am an economist by training with particular interests in the international economy, industrialization, industrial policy and cost-benefit analysis and still active in research, consultancy and writing. For a few years following his retirement, Edwards' focus was on global imbalances in the international economy, the costs and benefits of rural water supply and sanitation facilities, the Private Finance Initiative in the UK’s health sector and on industrialization in South Africa.