FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Cathleen C. Savage
(202) 223-1635
savage-cathleen@norc.org

Stephen B. Butler Joins NORC’s International Projects Department

WASHINGTON - Stephen B. Butler has joined the International Projects Department of NORC.  Since 1992 he has engaged in an independent consulting practice in international development under his Jurisconsult LLC, working with the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Interamerican Development Bank, USAID and various private sector consulting firms, including spending much of the 1990s as an affiliated consultant of the International Activities Center of the Urban Institute. Prior to his work in international development he was in private sector legal practice and an executive in housing and commercial property development. Butler will work out of NORC's Washington, DC office while continuing to live in Connecticut.

Butler has advised international donor agencies and ministries, central banks and regulatory commissions in 25 transitional and developing countries in 5 regions, assisting with policy review and development, institution building, design and implementation of regulatory action programs, and evaluation of public sector initiatives. His work has focused on property rights, development of commercial law, administrative and regulatory barriers to business start-up and investment, housing markets and housing finance, and land reform and administration. In recent years a large part of his practice has been focused on increasing the efficiency of public administrative processes, in particular licensing, permitting and registration of property and property rights, and development of regulatory frameworks for primary and secondary mortgage markets. He lectures annually at the International Housing Finance Conference sponsored by the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

Just prior to joining NORC, Butler had been working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Viet Nam on behalf of the Foreign Investment Advisory Service of the International Finance Corporation, with the Government of Egypt on behalf of the World Bank, and with the Financial Services Commission of Mongolia on behalf of USAID. The Viet Nam project is designed to assess the impact of that nation's Land Code on business creation and growth and to point the way to revisions to land and property law to be made over the coming years. This effort entailed a survey of small and medium enterprises and market professionals, as well as in-depth interviews with government officials in 12 Vietnamese provinces. In Egypt, he had been advising the World Bank on the regulatory environment for creation of an Egyptian mortgage refinancing authority, and working with various ministries in that country to conceptualize reforms in land policy and property rights registration systems. In Mongolia, Butler works with the Financial Services Commission to create the legal and regulatory framework for mortgage and asset backed securities.

Butler holds a joint JD/MPA degree from the New York University School of Law and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University.

NORC at the University of Chicago, known since 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, conducts high quality social science research in the public interest. Visit our site at: www.norc.org.

Additional Contact Information:
Stephen B. Butler
butler-stephen@norc.org