Month: April 2019

9th Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

Past Events, Research Conference

The 9th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) will be held on:

Friday, April 26, 2019
8:15 a.m. – 5:15 p.m.
Lindner Family Commons (6th Floor)
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street, NW

The Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) is a forum that highlights trade research at institutions in the Washington D.C. area. Its primary activity is sponsoring an annual research conference where scholars present their latest academic work. Researchers from George Washington University, American University, the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Board, Georgetown University, the Inter-American Development Bank, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), the U.S. International Trade Commission, the University of Maryland, and the World Bank have all participated in the symposium.

RSVP

Conference Program

08:15-08:55

 Breakfast
08:55-09:00  Opening Remarks: Maggie Chen, Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University
9:00-9:45

“Regional Spillovers through Multi-Market Firms: The Product Replacement Channel”

  • Presenter: Ryan Kim, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
  • Discussant: Ana Fernandes, World Bank
9:45-10:30

“Non-Tariff Barriers and Bargaining in Generic Pharmaceuticals”

  • Presenter: Sharat Ganapati, Georgetown University
  • Discussant: Gloria Sheu, Department of Justice
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:45

“Training and Labor Adjustment to Trade”

  • Presenter: Marisol Rodriguez Chatruc, Inter-American Development Bank
  • Discussant: Claire Brunel, American University
11:45-12:30

“Trade, Jobs, and Worker Welfare”

  • Presenter: Eunhee Lee, University of Maryland
  • Discussant: Ricardo Reyes-Heroles, Federal Reserve Board
12:30-13:15 Lunch
13:15-14:00

“Family Leave Law and the Demand for Female Labor: Evidence from a Trade Shock”

  • Presenter: Fariha Kamal, U.S. Census Bureau
  • Discussant: Mina Kim, Bureau of Labor Statistics
14:00-14:45

“Robots, Tasks, and Trade”

  • Presenter: Erhan Artuc, World Bank
  • Discussant: Heiwai Tang, Johns Hopkins University
14:45-15:00 Coffee Break
15:00-15:45

“Testing Stolper-Samuelson with a Natural Experiment”

  • Presenter: Dan Bernhofen, American University
  • Discussant: Colin Hottman, Federal Reserve Board
15:45-16:30

 “What are the Price Effects of Trade: Evidence from the U.S. and Implications for Quantitative Trade Models”

  • Presenter: Erick Sager, Federal Reserve Board
  • Discussant: Paul Piveteau, Johns Hopkins University
 16:30-17:15

“Your (Country’s) Reputation Precedes You: Information Asymmetry, Externalities and the Quality of Exports”

  • Presenter: Yingyan Zhao, Penn State University and George Washington University
  • Discussant: Paulo Bastos, World Bank

 

Previous WAITS Conferences
8th WAITS Conference
7th WAITS Conference
6th WAITS Conference
5th WAITS Conference
4th WAITS Conference
3th WAITS Conference
2th WAITS Conference
1th WAITS Conference

Shared Values in U.S.- Taiwan Relations: Strengthening Democracy Through Open Governance

Global Economic Governance Events, Global Governance, Past Events

Tuesday, April 23, 2019
12 – 2 p.m.
Lindner Family Commons (6th Floor)
Elliott School of International Affairs – GWU
1957 E Street, NW

Open. Collective. Experimental. Sustainable. Taiwan’s first Digital Minister Audrey Tang will address what happens when people who grew up on the internet get their hands on the building blocks of government. As a self-described “conservative anarchist” and a so-called “white-hat hacker,” Minister Tang will show how she works with her team to channel greater combinations of intelligence into policy-making decisions and the delivery of public services. Minister Tang will also discuss “tech for good” and how Taiwan is “SDG

(Sustainable Development Goals) indexing everything.” This event is free and open to the public and the media. This event will be live streamed on the Sigur Center’s YouTube channel. During the moderated Q&A session, Minister Tang will use the Sli.do polling platform to include audiences on the internet in the discussion.

 

Agenda

12 – 12:05 p.m. Welcome Remarks by Sigur Center for Asian Studies Director Benjamin Hopkins

12:05 – 12:25 p.m. Keynote Address by Minister Audrey Tang

12:25 – 12:45 p.m. Commentary by Dr. Susan Aaronson and Dr. Scott White

12:45 – 1:15 p.m. Moderated Q&A Discussion by Dr. Deepa Ollapally

1:15 – 1:45 p.m. Conclusion and Lunch

Earth Day: The Ethics of Climate Change

Adaption to Climate Change Events, Climate Adaptation, Past Events

The Leadership, Ethics and Practice (LEAP) Initiative, the Institute for
International Economic Policy (IIEP), and the Masters of Arts in International
Affairs (MAIA) program present:

Earth Day:
The Ethics of Climate Change
A lunch discussion with Dr. Andrew Steer, President and CEO of World
Resources Institute

 

Monday, April 22, 2019
12:00pm to 1:00p

Elliott School of International Affairs
Room 505,  5th floor
1957 E Street NW Washington, DC 20052

About the Speaker

Dr. Andrew Steer is the President and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a global research organization that works in more than 50 countries, with offices in the Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States. WRI’s more than 500 experts work with leaders to address six urgent global challenges at the intersection of economic development and the natural environment: food, forests, water, climate, energy and cities.Dr. Steer joined WRI from the World Bank, where he served as Special Envoy for Climate Change from 2010 – 2012. From 2007 to 2010, he served as Director General at the UK Department of International Development (DFID) in London. Dr. Steer is a Global Agenda Trustee for the World Economic Forum, and is a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Energy Transitions Commission, the Champions 12.3 Coalition to reduce food loss and waste, the Sustainable Advisory Groups of both IKEA and the Bank of America, and he serves on the Executive Board of the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy For All Initiative. In earlier years, Andrew held several senior posts at the World Bank, including Director of the Environment Department. He also has directed World Bank operations in Vietnam and Indonesia and served as Chief of the Country Risk Division and Director and Chief Author of the 1992 World Development Report on Environment and Development.

IMF Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook (REO)

Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Past Events, Research Conference

Thursday, May 9, 2019
10:00am to 12:00pm

 
Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Commons, 6th floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Schedule:

10 a.m.

Welcome Remarks by Maggie Chen and Jennifer Cooke 
10:05 a.m. Opening remarks and REO summary – Mahvash S. Qureshi 
10:20 a.m. “The Economic Consequences of Conflict” – Shanta Devarajan
10:40 a.m. Discussant remarks and presenter response 
10:55 a.m. Audience Q&A
11:10 a.m.

“Is the African Continental Free Trade Area a Game Changer for the Continent?” – Jason Weiss and Yunhui Zhao

Florie Liser, President and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa
11:30 a.m. Discussant remarks and presenter response – Discussant (TBD)
11:45 a.m. Audience Q&A
12:00 p.m.   Event conclusion

 

SUMMARY Chapter – Presented by Mahvash S. Qureshi - IMF

The economic recovery in sub-Saharan Africa continues. Regional growth is set to pick up from 3.0 percent in 2018 to 3.5 percent in 2019, before stabilizing at about 4.0 percent over the medium term. These region‑wide statistics mask considerable heterogeneity in the growth performance and prospects of countries across the region. About half of the countries—mostly non-resource-intensive—are expected to grow at 5 percent or more, implying that their per capita incomes over the medium term would rise faster than the average for the rest of the world. For other countries (mostly resource intensive), improvements in living standards will be slower. Notwithstanding these different economic prospects, countries share the challenge of strengthening resilience and creating higher, more inclusive and durable growth. Addressing these challenges requires enhancing resilience to shocks by building fiscal space including through revenue mobilization, boosting productivity, and spurring private investment.

 

The two analytical chapters in the REO focus on the economic costs of conflicts in the region and the implications of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF CONFLICT: presented by Siddharth Kothari

This chapter explores the challenges faced by conflict-affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, providing a comprehensive analysis of the trends and economic consequences of conflicts. Although the intensity of conflicts in recent years is lower than that observed in the 1990s, the region remains prone to conflicts, with around 30 percent of the countries affected in 2017. Moreover, the nature of conflicts has changed, with traditional civil wars being replaced by non-state-based conflicts, including the targeting of civilians through terrorist attacks. Conflicts in the region are associated with a large and persistent decline in per capita GDP and have significant spillover effects on nearby regions and countries. They also pose significant strains on countries’ public finances, lowering revenue, raising military spending, and shifting resources away from development and social spending, which further aggravates the conflicts’ economic and social costs. The findings highlight the significant costs and formidable challenges faced by countries suffering from conflict and underscores the need to prevent conflicts, including by promoting inclusive economic development, building institutional capacity, and social cohesion. For countries in conflict, efforts should focus on limiting the loss of human and physical capital by protecting social and development spending. While this may be especially daunting given fiscal pressures, well-targeted and coordinated humanitarian aid and concessional financial assistance can provide some relief.

Is The African Continental Free Trade Area A Game Changer For The Continent?

potential benefits and challenges of implementing the AfCFTA. The AfCFTA agreement envisions elimination of tariffs on most goods, liberalization of trade of key services, addressing nontariff obstacles that hamper intraregional trade, and eventually creating a continental single market with free movement of labor and capital. The AfCFTA will likely have important macroeconomic and distributional effects. It can significantly boost intra-African trade, particularly if countries tackle nontariff bottlenecks to trade, including physical infrastructure, logistical costs, and other trade facilitation hurdles. The picture is not uniform. More diversified economies and those with better logistics and infrastructure will benefit relatively more from trade integration. Fiscal revenue losses from tariff reductions are likely to be limited on average, with a few exceptions. Moreover, deeper trade integration is associated with a temporary increase in income inequality. The findings suggest that, in addition to tariff reductions, policy efforts to boost regional trade should focus on reforms to address country-specific nontariff bottlenecks. To ensure that the benefits of regional trade integration are shared by all, policymakers should be mindful of the adjustment costs that integration may entail. For less developed and agriculture-based economies, trade policies should be combined with structural reforms to improve agricultural productivity and competitiveness. Furthermore, governments should facilitate the reallocation of labor and capital across sectors (for example, active-labor market programs such as training and job-search assistance, and measures that enhance competitiveness and productivity) and bolster safety nets (income support and social insurance programs) to alleviate the temporary adverse effects on the most vulnerable.

IMF World Economic Outlook

Global Economic Governance Events, International Finance, International Finance Events, International Trade, International Trade Events, Maggie Chen, Past Events

Schedule

9:30 – 9:45  Opening Remarks: Maggie Chen, Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University 
9:45 – 10:15 

Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies 

• Presenter: Malhar Nabar, Deputy Division Chief, WEO Division, Research Department, International Monetary Fund 
10:15 – 10:30  Coffee Break 
10:30 – 11:15 

Chapter 2: The Rise of Corporate Market Power and Its Macroeconomic Effects 

• Presenter: Romain Duval, Advisor to the Chief Economist, Research Department, International Monetary Fund

• Discussant: Zia Qureshi, Visiting Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution
11:15 – 11:30  Coffee Break 
11:30 – 12:15 

Chapter 3: The Price of Capital Goods: A Driver of Investment Under Threat? 

• Presenter: Natalija Novta, Economist, WEO Division, Research Department, International Monetary Fund
• Discussant: Paulo Bastos, Senior Economist, DECTI, World Bank
12:15  Concluding Remarks

 

Maggie Chen

George Washington University 

Maggie Chen is a professor of economics and international affairs at The George Washington University. Her areas of research expertise include foreign direct investment, international trade, and regional trade agreements and her work has been published extensively in academic journals such as American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and Journal of International Economics. She has worked as an economist in the research department of the World Bank, a trade policy advisor at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office leading policy analysis on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and a consultant for various divisions of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation advising issues ranging from foreign direct investment and technical trade barriers to the Belt and Road Initiative and contributing to various World Bank flagship studies and the World Development Report. She is a co-editor of the Economic Inquiry. Professor Chen received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her B.A. in Economics from Beijing Normal University. 

Malhar Nabar 

International Monetary Fund 

Malhar Nabar is Deputy Division Chief in the World Economic Studies Division, where he is part of the core team that produces the WEO. In previous roles at the IMF, Malhar has covered China and Japan, and was Mission Chief to Hong Kong SAR. Prior to joining the IMF, Malhar taught at Wellesley College. His research interests are in investment and productivity growth, and he has published in various journals including Journal of Development Economics, Economic Inquiry, and Journal of Macroeconomics. He holds a PhD from Brown University and a BA from Oxford University. 

Romain Duval 

International Monetary Fund 

Romain Duval is an advisor to the Chief Economist in the IMF Research Department, where he also leads the Structural Reforms Unit. Previously he was the division chief for Regional Studies of the IMF Asia Pacific Department and led the Regional Economic Outlook. Prior to joining the Fund, he was the division chief for Structural Policies Surveillance at the OECD Economics Department, where he was also the editor of the flagship publication Going for Growth. He has published extensively in leading academic and policy-oriented journals on a wide range of topics including the economics and political economy of labor and product market regulations, growth, productivity, trade, monetary policy, equilibrium real exchange rates, and climate change economics. Over the years his research has also been profiled numerous times in leading global newspapers and magazines such as The Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. 

Zia Qureshi 

Brookings Institution 

Zia Qureshi is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He also advises and consults for several other organizations. His research and commentary cover a broad range of global economic issues, including a recent focus on how technology is reshaping the economic agenda. He has published widely on these issues. Prior to joining Brookings, he worked at the World Bank and the IMF for thirty-five years, holding several leadership positions, including serving as Director, Development Economics, at the Bank and as Executive Secretary of the Joint Bank-Fund Ministerial Development Committee. He represented the Bank at major international forums, including the G20. He led a number of Bank and Fund flagship publications. He holds a DPhil in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. 

Natalija Novta 

International Monetary Fund 

Natalija Novta is an Economist at the IMF’s Research Department, where she works on the World Economic Outlook. She previously worked in the Western Hemisphere and the Fiscal Affairs Departments contributing to the Regional Economic Outlook and the Fiscal Monitor, respectively. Before joining the Fund, she worked at the Fiscal Council of Serbia, the Serbian Ministry of Finance, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. She holds a PhD in Economics from New York University, and a BA from Harvard University. Her research has focused on economic development, conflict, climate change, trade flows, and public sector employment. She has published at the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Conflict Research and International Tax and Public Finance. 

Paulo Bastos 

World Bank 

Paulo Bastos is a Senior Economist with the Development Research Group of the World Bank in the Trade and International Integration Unit (DECTI). His research interests include the drivers of firm performance in export markets, links between globalization and technological change, and the distributional impacts of trade and FDI. His recent research exploits large administrative data sets to address these topics. He has published in scholarly journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Industrial Economics and International Journal of Industrial Organization. Prior to joining the World Bank, he held positions at the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Commission and the University of Nottingham. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Nottingham and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Porto. 

Full WEO Report

Financing the Sustainable Development Goals

Adaption to Climate Change Events, Climate Adaptation, International Finance, International Finance Events, Maggie Chen, Past Events

Wednesday, April 10th 2019 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Lindner Family Commons

 

Watch

Information: The last few years have witnessed a seismic shift in investors’ attitudes and demand for social and economic investments in emerging markets. Impact investing, ESG, Green Finance and SDGs are among many of the words that have recently populated investment committees and investor conferences as well as boardrooms. Leveraging GWU’s IIEP Visiting Scholar’s work on Assessing and Monitoring the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAA) and Citi’s GPS research, UN’s SDG: Pathways to Success- A Systemic Framework for Aligning Investment, the event will provide the opportunity to evaluate the progress of SDG financing and to appraise the degree of mobilization of private sector capital in support of the SDGs. Within this analytical context, market participants — issuers, investors, Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) and donors — will discuss the advances and challenges of financing sustainable development. The forum will seek to address the means to scale private sector capital investment, the need to institutionalise SDG financing instruments and structures and the critical contributions that public sector actors, such as donor agencies, can make to realize the “disruption” of the development aid paradigm. The discussion will also touch upon the importance of data capture and disclosure as it relates to the impact and outcomes of the SDG’s investments.  

Agenda

7:30–8:00am: Breakfast and Registration 8:00–8.05am: Welcome Remarks

  • Maggie Chen, Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, GWU
  • Julie Monaco, Managing Director, Global Head Public Sector Group, Corporate and Investment Bank, Citi

8:05–8:20am: Setting the Stage (Presentations of Relevant Research)

  • Ajay Chhibber, Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Economic Policy, GWU
  • Jason Channell, Head of Social & Responsible Investment Research, Citi

 8:20–9:30am: High-Level Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A Panelists

  • Denis Duverne, Chairman, Board of Directors, AXA
  • Mahmoud Mohieldin, Senior Vice President, 2030 Development Agenda, United Nations Relations, and Partnerships, World Bank
  • Donna Sims Wilson, President, Smith Graham & Co.
  • Sean Jones, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Food Security, USAID
  • Tim Turner, Group Chief Risk Officer, African Development Bank

 

Organizing Committee: Peter Sullivan (Citi), Ajay Chhibber, Kyle Renner, Sunil Sharma (all George Washington University), and Andreas (Andy) Jobst (World Bank)

Economic Diversification in the Post-Oil Era

Development Economics, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, International Trade, International Trade Events, Past Events

Friday, April 12, 2019
9:00 am – 10:30 am

Hosting Kuwait’s Minister of Finance 

Elliott School of International Affairs
State room, 7th floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Schedule

09:00-09:30 a.m

Registration, Light Refreshments, and Networking

09:30-09:40 a.m.

Welcome Remarks by Amb. Ghnem

09:40-10:20 a.m 

one -on-one discussion with H.E. Dr. Nayef F. Al-Hajraf moderated by Prof. Robert Weiner

10:20 a.m.-10:30 a.m

Audience Q&A
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