Halberstadt was born on 16 June 1939, in
Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was raised in a Jewish family and experienced the terrors of the Holocaust. From 1965 to 1974, Halberstadt was a senior lecturer of public sector finance at the
University of Amsterdam. From 1971 to 1973, he was an adviser of the Directorate-General of the
National Budget of the Dutch
Ministry of Finance. On 9 September 1974, he was appointed professor of public sector finance of the
University of Leiden. In October 1981, he was along with economist
Cees de Galan appointed an informer to mediate the
1981 Dutch Cabinet crisis. Halberstadt held several positions, including Crown Member of the
Social-Economic Council (1972–2004), honorary secretary-general of the
Bilderberg Group (1980–2000), president of the
International Institute of Public Finance (1987–1990), director of
Het Concertgebouw (1988–2011), member of the faculty of the
World Economic Forum (1990–), member of the international advisory board of
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (1991–), chairman of the
Daimler-Chrysler international advisory board (1995–2005), member of the board of trustees of the
Dutch National Opera (2003–), member of the board of trustees of the
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2005–) and member of the board of trustees of the
Boekman Foundation (2009–). Since 1990, Halberstadt was a Knight of the
Order of the Netherlands Lion. He was a member of the steering committee of the
Bilderberg Group. Halberstadt was a member of the board of directors of the
International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), a global nonprofit organization that combats
child sexual exploitation,
child pornography, and
child abduction. Halberstadt died on 13 September 2024, at the age of 85. ==References==