Lawrence H. Thompson: Senior Fellow, Urban Institute

Lawrence H. Thompson is a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the analysis of public policy issues. He also recently completed a four-year term as President of the National Academy of Social Insurance, of which he was a founding member. Dr. Thompson specializes in public pension design and administration. He serves as a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Labor Office. Over the past five years he has worked on projects in Russia, China, the Philippines, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Viet Nam and the Kyrgyz Republic. His analysis of the economic issues involved in public pension design, which was undertaken for the International Social Security Association, was published as Older and Wiser: The Economics of Public Pensions, published in 1998 by the Urban Institute Press.

Thompson was Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration from June 1993 through December 1995, and Acting Commissioner during the Summer of 1993. There he was responsible for both program policy development and operational management of the nation's largest income security program.

Thompson has spent his career dealing with education, income security and health issues. From 1989 through 1993, he was Assistant Comptroller General of the United States at the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) where he was responsible for oversight of all federal health, education, labor market and income security programs. He was Chief Economist of the GAO from 1983 to 1988. Prior experience included positions at the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Education, and the U. S. Office of Economic Opportunity.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State University, a Masters of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.