Ioana Petrescu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the President of Simply Green (Pur si Simplu Verde), a Romanian environmental NGO. Starting 2022, she became an European Climate Pact Ambassador and in this position, she promotes the adoption of green energy across the economy and the extension of renewably powered public transportation in collaboration with local governments. Dr. Petrescu is a former Romanian Finance Minister. She also served in the government as an economic adviser to the prime minister and head of his delivery unit, where she monitored the implementation of the prime minister’s priorities in procurement, employment, energy and tax compliance. She is an international consultant on issues such as tax reform, central government delivery and local public services. In the past, she also served as an expert for the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels. She was an Assistant Professor at University of Maryland and she holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. She published in various academic journals and newspapers. Her 2017 book, Essays in Taxation and International Relations, analyzes issues such as flat taxation and government revenues. Ioana’s second book Adolescent Democracies: A Former Finance Minister’s Guide to Policymaking, explores good practices in the delivery of public goods and services in democracies characterized by corruption and clientelism, low paid bureaucrats, poor institutions, frequent political turnover, unclear legislation, and little transparency. The manuscript is under review at the University of Chicago Press. She is currently working on a third book combining her two greatest passions: government and space. The project adapts current governance systems to work for a future society inhabiting Mars.
