Jo Kwong is a visiting fellow with the Independent Women's Forum and the director of institute relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia. Kwong has devoted her life to promoting the principles of the free society. She has worked at several leading independent, free market institutes including the Political Economy Research Center (Bozeman, MT), Institute for Humane Studies (Arlington, VA), Capital Research Center (Washington, DC), and since 1990, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
In her work at Atlas, Kwong has helped establish and develop public policy institutes around the world that are committed to free markets and individual rights. Kwong has lectured, written articles, and collaborated with international public policy think tanks on programs to promote the principles of limited government, rule of law, and individual responsibility to audiences in countries including Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, Venezuela, and of course, North America. Kwong has also lectured and written on a broad range of environmental issues, for audiences both in the United States and around the world. The basic premise of her approach is that private property rights and market processes provide powerful incentives for people to become protective stewards of the environment. A system in which hundreds of thousands of people care for the environment offers a very effective alternative to a system of stronger, more intrusive government regulation. In October 2002, she received the State Policy Network's Roe Award, which pays tribute to those who have greatly advanced the free market philosophy.
Kwong has written books for the Capital Research Center in Washington, DC (Old Rhetoric, New Imperatives), Citizens for a Sound Economy (Myths about the Environment), the Hong Kong Economic Research Centre (Market Environmentalism: Lessons for Hong Kong), and the Institute for Economic Affairs (Environmental Education). Her articles have been published by institutes including the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty (MI), the Association for Liberal Thinking (Turkey), Center for the Study of American Business (MO), Centro De Estudios Economico-Sociales (Guatemala), Foundation for Economic Education (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY), Instituto Liberal (Brazil), Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (CA), Philanthropic Roundtable (IN), Political Economy Research Center (Bozeman, MT), the Social Affairs Unit (London) and the Thomas Jefferson Institute (VA). Several have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, German, Czech, and Turkish.
In addition, Kwong has published in journals including The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Urban Lands, and the American Land Forum, as well as in the popular press such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
By appointment from former Governor George Allen, Kwong has served on the Commonwealth of Virginia's State Water Control Board and on the board of the Conservation and Recreation Foundation. She currently serves on the advisory board of trustees for the State Policy Network, Council of Academic Advisers of the Institute for Free Enterprise in Germany, the advisory board of Boss Magazine in Nepal; and the advisory board of the first independent think tank in Croatia. Kwong is a member of both the International Mont Pelerin Society and the US-Based Philadelphia Society, at which she has recently been nominated to join the board for 2005.
Kwong holds a doctorate in natural resource economics and management and a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan. Her undergraduate degree in biology and urban studies is from Brown University.