4th GW India Conference on India’s Economic Development and U.S.-India Economic Relations

Tuesday, April 16th, 2024

Elliott School of International Affairs
City View Room

The Institute for International Economic Policy is pleased to invite you to the annual GW India Conference on India’s Economic Development and U.S.-India Economic Relations. This year’s conference will focus on “Making India an Advanced Economy by 2047: What Will it Take” and will feature numerous esteemed individuals and notable speakers. Breakfast, lunch, and coffee included.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Institute for International Economic Policy, the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, the GW Center for International Business Education and Research, and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Conference Agenda

8:30-9:00 a.m. – Breakfast and Registration

9:00-9:05 a.m. – Welcome Remarks

James Foster, Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, GWU

9:05-10:15 a.m. – Opening Keynote Session

Chair: Alyssa Ayres, Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs
Thematic Address: Indermit Gill, Chief Economist, The World Bank, “How Can India Avoid the Middle-Income Trap?”
Keynote Address: V. Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor, GOI, “India’s Path to An Advanced Economy: Growth and Structural Transformation”

10:15-11:15 a.m. – Session 1: “India Macroeconomic Imperatives in a Post-Pandemic World”

Chair: Ajay Chhibber, IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar, GWU
Speaker: Sajjid Chinoy, J.P.Morgan, and Member, PM’s Economic Advisory Council
Discussant: Prachi Mishra, Chief, Systemic Issues Division, IMF

11:15-11:30 a.m. – Coffee break

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. – Session 2: “India’s Trade Policy and the Global Environment”

Chair: Atman Trivedi, Partner, Albright Stonebridge Group
Speaker: Arun Kumar, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, USA and former Head, KPMG, India
Discussants: Judith Dean, Professor of International Economics, Brandeis University

12:30-1:30 p.m. – Lunch Keynote Session

   Chair: Scott Pace, IISTP and SPI Director, GWU

   Lunch Speaker: Dr. Vivek Lall, Chief Executive, General Atomics Global Corporation, on “U.S.-India Technology and Defense Cooperation”

1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. – Session 3: “Reducing Inequality and Eliminating Poverty”

Chair: James Foster, GWU
Speaker: Sabina Alkire, Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
Discussants: Nandini Krishnan, Lead Economist, Poverty and Equity, South Asia, The World Bank.

2:30-3:30 p.m. – Session 4: “Social Inclusion and Empowerment”

Chair: Deepa Ollapally, Research Professor of International Affairs, GWU
Speaker: Prerna Singh, Mahatma Gandhi Associate Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, Brown University
Discussant: Irfan Nooruddin, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Indian Politics, Georgetown University

3:30-3:45 p.m. – Coffee Break

3:45-4:45 p.m. – Session 5: “Climate Change: India’s Pathways and Challenges”

Chair: Maureen Cropper, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland
Speaker: Mekala Krishnan, Partner, McKinsey Global Institute
Discussants: Stephane Hallegate, Senior Climate Change Advisor, The World Bank

4:45-5:30 pm – Closing Session: “Pathways to India’s Progress: Breaking the Mould”

Chair: Vivek Arora, Deputy Director, Independent Evaluation Office, IMF
Speaker: Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Chicago Booth, and 23rd RBI Governor

5:30-6:30 pm – Reception:

Remarks by Junaid Kamal Ahmad, Executive Vice President of MIGA

 

About the Keynote Speaker

Dr. V. Anantha Nageswaran serves as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. He wrote a weekly column for Mint for 15 years, as well as co-authored four books. Prior to his current role, Dr. Nageswaran was a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India for 2 years and is an honorary senior advisor to the International Financial Services Authority of India. Between 1994 to 2011, he held several positions including Currency Economist at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Head of Research and Investment Consulting in Credit Suisse Private Banking in Asia, and Head of Asia Research and Global Chief Investment Officer at Bank Julius Baer. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad with a Masters in Business Administration and received his PhD in Finance from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

 

About the Thematic Address

 

Indermit Gill is Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, Gill served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he helped shape the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program. Gill led the World Bank’s influential 2009 World Development Report on economic geography. His work includes introducing the concept of the “middle-income trap” to describe how countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. He has published extensively on key policy issues facing developing countries—among other things, sovereign debt vulnerabilities, green growth and natural-resource wealth, labor markets, and poverty and inequality. Gill has also taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

 

About the Session Speakers

Sajjid Z. Chinoy is J.P. Morgan’s Chief India Economist and also serves on the Advisory Council to the 15th Finance Commission set up by the Government of India. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and McKinsey & Company. He has also previously served as a member of the RBI’s “Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework” that proposed inflation targeting in India, was a consultant to the FRBM Review Committee set up by the government to proposed a new fiscal anchor, and a member of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) Monetary Policy Group. Since 2014, he has been ranked as one of the “Best Individuals in Research in India” by Asset Magazine. He has authored several publications on the Indian economy including co-editing a book on Indian economic reform: “Reforming India’s External, Fiscal and Financial Policies” with Dr. Anne O. Krueger. He received his Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University in 2001.

 

Arun Kumar most recently served as the Chairman and CEO of KPMG in India, an organization consisting of several thousand professionals engaged in providing assurance, tax, and advisory services. He was a member of the global board of directors of KPMG. He previously served in President Obama’s Administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service (USFCS). As the Administration’s lead official to promote U.S. exports, foreign direct investment, and enhanced market access around the world, he led a team of 1,700 professionals in 78 countries and all 50 United States. Prior to his stint in Washington, DC, Arun was a partner and a member of the board of KPMG LLP in the US. Based in Silicon Valley, he led KPMG’s Management Consulting practice in the West for many years. He has also been a company mentor and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Arun is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Global Trade Paradigm (HarperCollins, 2023) as well as two books of poetry.

 

Dr. Vivek Lall is the Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corporation based in San Diego, California. GA and affiliated companies operate on five continents. The company produces a series of unmanned aircraft (Predator/Reaper/Guardian), produces electro-magnetic aircraft launch and recovery systems, satellite surveillance, electro-magnetic rail gun, high power laser, hypervelocity projectile, and power conversion systems, is the principal private sector participant in thermonuclear fusion research through its internationally recognized DIII-D Facility.

GA is also a leader in development of next-generation nuclear fission and high-temperature materials technologies. Lall has been appointed to the following Boards: Advisory Board of the Quad Investors Network, United States Technical Team member to the NATO STO (Science and Technology Organization),Industry Advisory Board of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME),International Advisory Group of the US Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors of US Japan Business Council, Global Board of Directors of the US India Business Council, Senior Advisor to the Center for Commerce and Diplomacy at the University of California San Diego, Board of the Center for Advancing Global Business at San Diego State University and US Cabinet Secretary heading Department of Transportation. Lall served as Vice President of Aeronautics Strategy and Business Development at Lockheed Martin, Chief Executive of U.S. and International Strategic Development at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems and held leadership roles with The Boeing Company where he was appointed as Vice President and India Country Head, Boeing Defense Space & Security.

In addition, he has worked as an adjunct faculty member at Embry- Riddle, McConnell Air Force Base, served as the founding Co-Chair of the US-India Aviation Cooperation Program and prior to Boeing he worked for Raytheon and conducted research with NASA Ames Research Center in various multidisciplinary engineering fields. Lall was also a special advisor to the United Nations in New York in broadband and associated cyber security issues. He earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Carleton University in Canada, a Masters of Aeronautical Engineering degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University in Kansas, his MBA from City University in Seattle and has completed management and executive courses at the American Management Association in Washington DC.

He was also conferred the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award by the President of the United States of America in September 2022, conferred the “World Leader Award” by the House of Lords in the United Kingdom in 2023 and the Golden Peacock award by the Institute of Directors (IOD) at United Arab Emirates in 2024. He is also an Ambassador of the State of Arkansas and a Kentucky Colonel which is the most well-known US colonelcies conferred to several past US Presidents. He was granted the Grand Cross by His highness Mahmoud Salah Al Din Assaf and Cambridge (UK) has listed him as one of only 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the Twentieth Century as well was President of the Mathematical Association of America. He has authored over hundred articles in various journals. He was also trained as a private pilot at the Phoenix International Flight Training Center in Florida.

 

Sabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at ODID. Her research interests include multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, welfare economics, the capability approach, the measurement of freedoms and human development. Together with Professor James Foster, she developed the Alkire-Foster (AF) method for measuring multidimensional poverty, a flexible technique that can incorporate different dimensions, or aspects of poverty, to create measures tailored to each context. With colleagues at OPHI this has been applied and implemented empirically to produce a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). The MPI offers a tool to identify who is poor by considering the range of deprivations they suffer. It is used to report a headline figure of poverty (the MPI), which can be unpacked to provide a detailed information platform for policy design showing how people are poor nationally, and how they are poor by areas, groups, and by each indicator. Previously, she worked at the George Washington University, Harvard University, the Human Security Commission, and the World Bank. She has a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. She holds a DPhil in Economics, an Msc in Economics for Development and an MPhil in Christian Political Ethics from the University of Oxford.

Prerna Singh is Mahatma Gandhi Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, with appointments in the School of Public Health and the Department of Sociology at Brown University. She has published numerous award-winning books and articles on human development, public health, ethnicity and nationalism. Her first book, How Solidarity Works for Welfare was awarded best book prizes from both the American Political Science and the American Sociological Associations. Singh has been awarded fellowships by the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the Social Science Research Council, the Andrew Carnegie foundation, the American Academy of Berlin, the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. She has shared her research with scholarly, policy and popular audiences in over a hundred lectures, including keynote addresses, delivered across twenty different countries.

 

Mekala Krishnan is a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey’s business and economics research arm. Her research focuses on topics related to sustainable and inclusive growth, including climate risk and the net-zero transition, globalization, productivity growth, and gender economics. Her most recent research focuses on the net-zero transition, adaptation and physical climate risk across sectors and geographies, including its implications for companies and countries. She is an author of the recent MGI reports, The net-zero transition: What it would cost, what it would bring, From poverty to empowerment: Raising the bar for sustainable and inclusive growth, and Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts. Her past research has focused on the risks facing global value chains and the future of globalization. Mekala is a frequent speaker on these topics at global conferences as well as with executives at Fortune 500 companies. She has authored numerous articles and her work has been cited in leading business publications, including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review. Mekala serves on a Bretton Woods Committee working group on climate finance and on advisory boards for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and for the Sibley School of Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University. She is also on the board of the Global Fund for Women, a leading public foundation dedicated to improving global gender equality. She was previously a member of a task force at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings focused on improving productivity measurement. Mekala received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2011. Prior to Cornell, she received a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2006 from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Raghuram Rajan Raghuram Rajanis the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School. Prior to that, he was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, as well as the Vice Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements from 2015 to 2016. Dr. Rajan was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006. Dr. Rajan’s research interests range from banking and monetary policy to corporate finance, political economy, communities, and economic development. He co-authored Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists with Luigi Zingales in 2003. He then wrote Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, for which he was awarded the Financial Times-Goldman Sachs prize for best business book in 2010. In 2019, his book, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind was a finalist for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. His most recent book, with Rohit Lamba, is Breaking the Mold on reimagining India’s economic future. Dr. Rajan was awarded the inaugural Fischer Black award for the best financial economist under the age of 40 in 2003, the Deutsche Bank prize for financial economics in 2013, the Euromoney Central Bank Governor of the Year in 2014, and Banker magazine’s Global Central Bank Governor of the Year in 2016. 

About the Reception Speaker

Junaid Kamal Ahmad is Vice President of Operations at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the Political Risk Insurance and Credit Enhancement arm of the World Bank Group (WBG). He is responsible for advancing and enhancing MIGA’s brand partnering across WBG and with financial institutions, private investors, and development actors to originate and pursue meaningful, impact-driven projects. Mr. Ahmad also leads the Operations team of the Agency to deliver on MIGA’s mandate of mobilizing private finance for development projects in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).

Mr. Ahmad, a Bangladeshi national, was previously the Country Director for the World Bank in India. He joined the Bank in 1991 as a Young Professional and worked on infrastructure development in Africa and Eastern Europe. He has since held several management positions, leading the Bank’s programs in diverse regions including Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. Mr. Ahmad served as the Chief of Staff and earlier as Special Assistant to the President of the World Bank Group. During a part of his time at the Bank, Mr. Ahmad was based in Johannesburg and New Delhi and in 2004, he was a core member of the World Development Report: Making Services Work for Poor People.

Throughout his career, Mr. Ahmad has focused on the role of service delivery in building and leveraging state capability and markets towards the goals of economic development and sustainability. In his work, Mr. Ahmad has focused on public finance and federalism and the management of urban governments across diverse country contexts from fragile and conflict settings, low and middle income, to large federations.  In addition, he has worked on public-private partnerships in infrastructure sectors and with municipal governments, focusing on the mobilization of private equity and long-term debt from capital markets. As the first Senior Director of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice and the former Country Director for India, Mr. Ahmad initiated and oversaw multi-billion-dollar sector and country programs covering finance, infrastructure, and human development. He is recognized for his strategic leadership of teams to deliver impact at scale.

Mr. Ahmad holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Stanford University, a 2-year MPA from Harvard University and a BA in Economics from Brown University. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Mr. Ahmad worked in the Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh, in the areas of trade and industrial policy. Mr. Ahmad has published on fiscal federalism and decentralization and on various aspects of infrastructure reform and service delivery.

8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Conference

March 7 – 8, 2024
World Bank, Main Complex

1818 H St, Washington, DC

The 8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference will bring together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to urban expansion and the future of cities.

The theme is of increasing importance to academics and policy makers alike as the supply of ideas and demand for solutions to address the challenges of urban expansion are growing. Cities in some developing countries are growing at faster rates and at lower income levels than those in developed countries. If well-directed and well-managed, expansion and densification of urban areas can bring economic growth while also offering poverty reduction opportunities. If poorly directed and managed, the result can be congested, unsustainable, and unproductive environments.

Planning for the cities of tomorrow is thus a crucial task, but one benefitting from a multi-disciplinary approach. This edition of the conference will draw from experts at the interface of policy and research to understand which new ideas, new methods, and new collaborations can bring about necessary changes.

The conference will feature a series of policy- and research-oriented events on March 7, 2024, followed by a more technical series of seminars and events (including a Young Urban Economist Workshop) on March 8, 2024. The conference is co-sponsored by the World Bank (Development Research Group and Urban, Disaster Risk, Resilience, and Land), George Washington University (Elliott School of International Affairs and Institute for International Economic Policy), the International Growth Centre (Cities that Work and Cities Research Program), and Millennium Challenge Corporation.

 

 

Conference Agenda

DAY 1 (March 7)

Registration and Coffee (8:30 – 9:00 am)

Welcoming Remarks (9:00 – 9:15 am)
Indermit Gill, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist, The World Bank
Edward Glaeser (TBC), Professor of Economics, Harvard University

OPENING SESSION: Urban Expansion and the Future of Cities (9:15 – 10:45am)
Chair and Moderator: Bernice Van Bronkhorst, Global Director for Urban, Resilience and Land Global Practice, The World Bank

POLICY SESSION: Planning in African Cities (10:45 am – 12:15 pm)
Chair: Alyssa Ayres, Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University

Lunch Break (12:15 – 1:30 pm)

KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND DEBATE: The Promises, Problems, and Policy Pitfalls of Urban Development (1:30 – 3:00 pm)
Keynote Speaker: Gilles Duranton, Dean’s Chair in Real Estate Professor, The Wharton at University of Pennsylvania

Coffee Break (3:00 – 3:30pm)

PARALLEL THEMATIC SESSIONS (3:30 – 5 pm)
Thematic Session A: Urban Expansion (Preston Auditorium)
Chair: Mesbah Motamed, Lead Economist, Millennium Challenge Corporation

Thematic Session B: Incremental Housing (MC 4-800)
Chair: Tanner Regan, Assistant Professor, George Washington University

Thematic Session C: City Structures (MC 13-121)
Chair: Stephane Hallegate, Senior Climate Change Adviser, World Bank

DAY 2 (March 8)

Registration and Coffee (8:30 – 9:15 am)

PARALLEL RESEARCH SESSIONS (9:15 – 11:15 am)
Research Session 1A: Local Economic Development (MC 2-800)
Chair: Jake Grover, Senior Advisor, Millennium Challenge Corporation

Research Session 1B: Segregation (MC C2-350)
Chair: Henry Telli, Senior Country Economist, Ghana, International Growth Centre

Research Session 1C: Transportation (MC 13-121)
Chair: Stephane Straub, Chief Economist for Infrastructure, The World Bank

PARALLEL WORKSHOPS (11:30 am – 12:30 pm)
Young Urban Economist Workshop – Part 1 (MC 2-800)
Chair: Oliver Harman, Cities Economist for the International Growth Centre’s (IGC)

Using Quantitative Spatial Models for Policy Workshop (MC 3-570)
Chair: Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Policy Economist, International Growth Centre

Lunch Break (12:30 – 1:15 pm)

PARALLEL SESSIONS (1:15 – 2:45 pm)
Young Urban Economist Workshop – Part 2 (MC 2-800)
Chair: Oliver Harman, Cities Economist for the International Growth Centre’s (IGC)

Policy Session: Connecting Policy, Projects, and Research Workshop (MC 13-121)
Chairs: Mesbah Motamed, Lead Economist, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Juliana Oliveira-Cunha, Policy Economist, International Growth Centre

PARALLEL RESEARCH SESSIONS (3:00 – 5:00 pm)
Research Session 3A: Crime and Conflict in Cities (MC 2-800)
Chair: Paul Carrillo, Professor, George Washington University

Research Session 3B: Housing (MC C2-350)
Chair: Hina Shaikh, Senior Country Economist, Pakistan, International Growth Centre

Research Session 3C: Urban Labor Markets (MC 13-121)
Chair: Louise Fox (TBC), Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Africa Growth Initiative, Brookings

For the full agenda and list of speakers, visit the 8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference page.

Sustainable Cities Workshop: Housing, Local Economic Development, & Planning

Thursday, February 15, 2024
9:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET
World Bank, Main Complex

Room MC4-100 1818 H St, Washington, DC

The World Bank – GWU Sustainable Cities workshop series brings together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss key questions of common interest relating to Sustainable Urbanization. Each workshop in the series focuses on a particular topic relating to cities in developing countries. The workshops are hosted by the World Bank (Urban, DRM, Resilience and Land Global Practice) and George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy & Department of Economics). Funding for this project was provided by the Institute for Humane Studies.

This discussion is supported by the GW University Seminar Series on Domestic and International Perspectives on Climate Change and Water Management and the GW University Seminar Series on The Global Socio-Economic Costs of Climate Change and Unsustainable Urbanization.

9.00-9.05 — Opening Remarks: Angelica Nunez (Manager, Global Programs Unit, GPURL – World Bank)

Paper Session  Chair: Tanner Regan (GWU)
9.05-9.25 — Policy talk: Sheila Kamunyori (Senior Urban Specialist, GPURL – World Bank, Rwanda office): “Reconsidering Sites and Services
9.25-9.30 — Discussant: Vernon Henderson (LSE)
9.30-9.40 — Q&A
9:40-10.00 — Academic talk: Martina Manara (Sheffield/UCL): “Evaluating urban planning: evidence from Dar es Salaam
10.00-10.05 — Discussant: David Mason (Urban Specialist, GPURL – World Bank, Tanzania office)
10.05-10.15 — Q&A

10.15-10.30 — Break
10.30-10.50 — Academic talk: Geetika Nagpal (Brown): “Scaling Heights: Affordability Implications of Zoning Deregulation in India
10.50-10.55 — Discussant: Horacio Terraza (Lead Urban Specialist, GPURL – World Bank)
10.55-11.05 — Q&A
11.05-11.25 — Policy talk: Dao Harrison (Senior Housing Specialist, GPURL – World Bank, Singapore)
11.25-11.30 — Discussant: Stephen Malpezzi (Wisconsin–Madison)
11.30-11.40 — Q&A

Keynote Session — Chair: Angelica Nunez (Manager, Global Programs Unit, GPURL – World Bank)
11.40-12.10 — Fernando Ferriera (Wharton) “Zoning and land use regulation in Developing Countries
12.10-12.25 — Q&A
12.25-12.30 — Closing Remarks: Remi Jedwab (GWU)

1st World Bank-GWU-UVA Research Conference on “The Economics of Sustainable Development”

Wednesday, November 29th, 2023
8:00 AM – 7:30 PM

Hybrid

The World Bank, in collaboration with George Washington University (GWU) and the University of Virginia (UVA), will host the 1st World Bank-GWU-UVA Conference on “The Economics of Sustainable Development”.

This hybrid conference will be held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC on November 29, 2023, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET and available via livestream. Coffee and lunch will be provided for in-person attendees. The conference will be followed by a reception at GWU from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET.

The conference will bring together academics and development economics practitioners to present and discuss pressing questions relating to sustainable development, a theme that is central to the World Bank’s mission of tackling poverty on a liveable planet.

This theme is of increasing importance due to the growing recognition that a commitment to development and tackling poverty is unviable without an equal commitment to the urgency of addressing climate change, pollution, and environmental degradation.

The conference will cover various topics, including biodiversity and forests, the economics of natural resources, and pollution. Furthermore, given Africa’s heavy reliance on renewable natural resources and its vulnerability to climate change impacts, there will be a particular focus on frontier work related to Africa.

Supported by the GW University Seminar Series on Domestic and International Perspectives on Climate Change and Water Management.

Conference Agenda

Welcoming remarks 8.00-8.15

Richard Damania (Chief Economist for Sustainable Development, World Bank) – 5 min

Andrew Dabalen (Chief Economist for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), World Bank) – 5 min

Sheetal Sekhri (UVA) or Molly Lipscomb (UVA) – 1 min

Remi Jedwab (GWU) – 1 min

Session 1 – 8.15-10.00 – Biodiversity and Forests

Each paper has 20 min without interruptions + 10 min Q&A

8.15-8.45 Paper 1: Raahil Madhok (Minnesota), Infrastructure, Institutions, and the Conservation of Biodiversity in India [South Asia]

8.45-9.15 Paper 2: Teevrat Garg (UCSD), Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation [SSA]

9.15-9.45 Paper 3: Anna Papp (Columbia), Rain Follows the Forest: Land Use Policy, Climate Change, and Adaptation [North America]

9.45-10.00 Policy discussion: Nancy Lozano Gracia (Lead Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean, Sustainable Development Practice Group, World Bank)

Coffee Break – 10.00-10.30

Session 2 – 10.30-12.15 – The Economics of Natural Resources

Chair: Richard Damania (Chief Economist, Sustainable Development Practice Group, World Bank)

Each paper has 20 min without interruptions + 10 min Q&A

10.30-11.00 Paper 1: Wolfram Schlenker (Columbia), Cooling Externality of Large-Scale Irrigation [North America]

11.00-11.30 Paper 2: Ryan Brown (CU-Denver), Reinforcing Inequality: Consequences of Elevated Fluoride Exposure and Inequitable Mitigation [South Asia]

11.30-12.00 Paper 3: Witold Więcek (University of Chicago), Water Treatment and Child Mortality: A Meta-Analysis and Cost-effectiveness Analysis.

12.00-12.15 Policy discussion: Hanan Jacoby (Lead Economist, Sustainability and Infrastructure Team, Development Research Group, World Bank)

Lunch Break – 12.15-1.00

Keynote – 1.00-2.00

1.00-1.05 Introduction

1.05-1.35 Keynote – Andrew Foster (Brown)

1.35-1.55 Policy discussion

Session 3 – 2.00-3.15 Climate Change in Africa and Asia

Chair: Andrew Dabalen (Chief Economist, Africa Region, World Bank)

Each paper has 12 min without interruptions + 8 min Q&A

2.00-2.20 Paper 1: Lucile Laugerette (F) (ENS-Lyon) and Mathieu Couttenier (M) (ENS-Lyon) – Groundwater, Climate Change and Conflict: Evidence from Africa [SSA]

2.20-2.40 Paper 2: Bruno Conte (M) (UPF) – Future Climate Change and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Regional Lake Economies [SSA]

2.40-3.00 Paper 3: Gaurav Chiplunkar (M) (UVA) – Environmental Markets and Misallocation: Evidence from Ground Water Availability in India [South Asia]

3.00-3.15 Policy discussion: Carolyn Fischer (Research Manager, Sustainability and Infrastructure Team, Development Research Group of the World Bank)

Coffee Break – 3.15-3.40

Session 4 – 3.40-5.45 – Air Pollution

Chair: Dina Umali-Deininger (Regional Director for South Asia, Sustainable Development Practice Group, World Bank)

3.40-4.00 Introductory presentation: Christa Hasenkopf (EPIC, University of Chicago): Insights from the latest Air Quality Life Index report, with a specific focus on sub-Saharan Africa [SSA]

Each of the following three papers has 20 min without interruptions + 10 min Q&A

4.00-4.30 Koichiro Ito (Chicago). International Spillover Effects of Air Pollution: Evidence from Mortality and Health Data. [EAP]

4.30-5.00 Saad Gulzar (M) (Princeton). Administrative Incentives Impact Crop-Residue Burning and Health in South Asia. [South Asia]

5.00-5.30 Susanna Berkouwer (Wharton): Private Actions in the Presence of Externalities: The Health Impacts of Reducing Air Pollution Peaks but not Ambient Exposure

5.30-5.45 Policy discussion: Helena Naber (Senior Environmental Specialist, Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice, World Bank)

Poverty and human development challenges in Arab countries

Monday, November 20th, 2023
4 p.m EDT

Online

Presenters:

Adeel Malik is a development macroeconomist with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation. His research engages with questions of long-run development, political economy and economic history, with a special focus on Muslim societies. His work combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. Apart from engaging with cross-country empirics on development, he is trying to develop a broader research lens on the political economy of the Middle East. His most recent contribution to the field was an article on ‘The Economics of the Arab Spring’, which received the Best Paper Award. It has now been translated into Arabic and several other languages, and formed the basis for a dedicated story in The Economist magazine. Another emerging area of interest is the interplay between religion, land and politics in Pakistan, which he is exploring as part of an IFPRI-funded project on structural constraints to public goods provision in Punjab.

 

Khalid Abu-Ismail is Senior Economist at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He currently leads or co-leads ESCWA’s work on global development challenges, beyond GDP, economic resilience, poverty, inequality and has formerly led ESCWA’s work on Economic Growth, Employment, MDGs, Middle Class, Fiscal Policies, and the Arab Vision 2030. He is the lead author of more than 50 technical papers and 20 UN flagship publications, including the 2022 World Development Challenges Report and the 2017 and 2023 Arab Multidimensional Poverty Reports. Formerly, he held positions of Poverty and Macroeconomic Policy Advisor at the United Nations Development Program Regional Offices for Arab States (2002-2012), Assistant to Minister of Public Enterprises in Egypt (1997) and Lead Economist with the Egyptian Cabinet’s Decision Support Center (1992-95). Khalid is a Policy Affiliate at the Middle East Economic Research Forum and a former Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the Lebanese American University. He has a D. Phil. in Development Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and MPhil in Development Planning and the Environment from the University of Dundee in Scotland.

 

Measuring the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in Multidimensional Poverty Reduction

Wednesday, 15th March, 2023

In this paper we propose indicators of impact and spending effectiveness of fiscal interventions for multidimensional poverty reduction. We bring together CEQ’s fiscal incidence methodology with OPHI’s multidimensional poverty methodology, using an MPI with the 𝑀0 structure as the metric for evaluation. The effectiveness indicators in the multidimensional case need to simultaneously consider the best allocation of money across dimensions (which deprivations to lift?) and across households (to whom should they be lifted?). In the impact effectiveness indicator, the observed poverty reduction is compared against the optimal reduction that could have been achieved. In turn, the spending effectiveness indicator compares the observed spent budget with the minimum budget that could have been spent had the money been allocated optimally. We consider two alternative criteria to find the optimal allocation: one that prioritizes reducing poverty (either incidence or intensity) to the biggest number of people -the MaxN-LNOB criterion- and another which prioritizes reducing poverty among poorest poor -the LNOB-MaxN criterion- which is a form of prioritarianism. When household sizes are ignored or poverty identification is done at the individual level, the two criteria coincide. The proposed methodology can be implemented using cross-sectional household survey (or census) data, alongside information on the cost of removing each deprivation at the household level, and information on the public spending the government has allocated or plans to allocate to the dimensions under analysis. The methodology can be implemented ex-post, as an effectiveness assessment, as well as ex-ante, to guide a multidimensional poverty reduction programme.

 

Maria Emma Santos is a Research Associate at OPHI and a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET), Argentina. Her research interests include the measurement and analysis of chronic and multidimensional poverty, the quality of education, its determinants, and its role for poverty persistence. She is particularly interested in Latin American countries.

 

James Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr., Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the FGT poverty measures, the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About The Series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. ET. They are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

The Future of Global Poverty Alleviation Through Social Business

Friday, March 24th, 2023
9:30-10:30 p.m EDT
In-Person

About the Speaker:

Picture of Muhammad YunusNobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, pioneering the concepts of microcredit and social business, founding more than 50 Social Business companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, the Fortune Magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.” At the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Professor Yunus was conferred with the Olympic Laurel award for his extensive work in sports for development, bringing the concept of social business to the sports world.
In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Yunus is the recipient of 63 honorary degrees from universities across 26 countries. He has received 143 awards from 33 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United State Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Newsweek and Forbes magazine. In 2016 GWU awarded him the President’s Medal in recognition of his service.

Professor Yunus has been stressing the need for a basic decision of ‘No Going Back’ to the old ways of thinking and doing. He proposes to create new roads to go to a new destination by creating a World of 3 Zeros – zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty once for all, and zero unemployment by unleashing entrepreneurship in everyone.

His recent focuses are:

a) Professor Yunus has been campaigning for making the Covid 19 Vaccine as a Global Common Good since June, 2020, urging the World Trade Organization to place a temporary waiver on Intellectual Property right on vaccine to free up the global capacity to produce vaccines at all locations around the world.

b) Professor Yunus has launched a programme of creating a network of 3ZERO Clubs, each club to be formed by five young people. The programme aims to engage the global youth in initiating actions for creating solutions for global problems

Sustainable Cities Workshop on “Urban Inclusion and Development”

Tuesday, May 9th, 2023
9:30-1:45 EDT
In-Person and Virtual

Globally, 55% of the population lives in urban areas today. By 2045, the number of people living in cities will increase by 1.5 times to 6 billion, adding 2 billion more urban residents. With more than 80% of global GDP generated in cities, urbanization can contribute to sustainable growth if managed well by increasing productivity, allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge. This workshop brings together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to Sustainable Urbanization.

This discussion was organized by the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at GWU in partnership with the World Bank (Urban Global Practice).

Please note that those who register to attend in person are strongly encouraged to attend as lunch will be ordered for the specific number of registrants. Light breakfast, lunch, and coffee will be provided with the support of the University Seminar Series on The Global Socio-Economic Costs of Climate Change and Unsustainable Urbanization.

 

9.30-9.35 – Opening Remarks: Chairs: Remi Jedwab (GWU) and Mark Roberts (Lead Urban Economist with the Urban, Resilience and Land Global Practice, World Bank)

Academic Presentations, Chair: Nicholas Li (GWU)

9.35-9.55 – Simon Franklin (QMU),“Urban Density and labour markets: Evaluating slum redevelopment in Addis Ababa”
9.55-10.00 – Discussant: Fernanda Rojas Ampuero (Harvard)
10.00-10.10 – Q&A

10.10-10.40 – Michael Gechter (Penn State), “Spatial Spillovers from Urban Renewal: Evidence from the Mumbai Mills Redevelopment”
10.40-10.45 – Discussant: Roman Zarate (World Bank)
10.45-10.55 – Q&A

10.55-11.25 – Milena Almagro (Chicago Booth), “Urban Renewal and Inequality: Evidence from Chicago’s Public Housing Demolitions”
11.25-11.30 – Discussant: Leah Brooks (GWU)
11.30-11.40 – Q&A

11.40-11.50 – Coffee

Lightning Talks, Chair: Tanner Regan (GWU)

11.50-12.00 – Mariaflavia Harari (Wharton), “Residential Patterns in Urban Brazil”
12.00-12.05 – Q&A

12.05-12.15 – Jingwen Zheng (GWU), “Estimating the Negative Externalities from Urban Blight: Evidence from the Demolition of Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong”
12.15-12.20 – Q&A

Concluding Session, Chair: Carlos Rodriguez Castelan (Practice Manager in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank)

12.20-12.40 – Mini-keynote with Maisy Wong (Wharton). “Urban Slums and Development: the Research Frontier”
12.40-12.50 – Discussant with Policy Reflections: Judy Baker, (Global Lead – Urban Poverty, Inclusive Cities and Housing, World Bank)
12:50-12:55 – Q&A

12.55-1.00 – Closing Remarks: Nancy Lozano (Lead Economist Sustainable Development, LAC, World Bank) and Tanner Regan (GWU)

1.00-1.45 – Lunch

Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics in Indonesia in the time of COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications

March 8th, Wednesday 2023
via Zoom and in person

It has long been recognised that poverty encompasses multiple aspects of wellbeing,thus, to truly measure it, a multidimensional tool is needed. This need has become further apparent as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to unfold and disrupt different areas of life, which include, among others, challenges in health, access to learning and the learning gap, alongside significant reductions in standards of living. This paper aims to examine multidimensional poverty trends during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, utilising a measure that is based on the Alkire-Foster (AF) method. To build this measure, data on household indicators available within the 2019, 2020 and 2021 Susenas waves, will be used. By utilising household information before and during the pandemic, this paper will analyse whether COVID-19 has led to significant increases in multidimensional poverty and to the emergence of the “new poor”. This paper also seeks to present an analysis of differences before and after the pandemic, with regard to the determinants of multidimensional poverty, thus pin-pointing household characteristics, which contribute the most to the experience of poverty. Finally, the findings of this paper aim to act as a robust evidence-base to guide the implementation of poverty alleviation policies in Indonesia during the pandemic.

 

Speaker:

Putu Natih supports the OPHI Outreach team and is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia (FEB UI), where she teaches Econometrics for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Putu is also currently supporting Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, as a social protection specialist. Before OPHI and FEB UI, Putu was a Statistics Tutor at Keble and St John’s Colleges at the University of Oxford. She also worked as a Research Assistant at the Blavatnik School of Government within a project on digital inequality. Putu completed her undergraduate degree at the Faculty of Economics, Universitas Indonesia and was a Jardine-Oxford Scholar at Trinity College, the University of Oxford, where she studied for her MPhil and DPhil.

 

Discussant:

Dr Elan Satriawan is an Economist with significant experience in both academic and policy making areas. In academics, he has done extensive research covering topics in development microeconomics areas particularly in impact evaluation and effectiveness of anti-poverty and social programs, poverty related issues including health, education and inter-linkages between the two involving frontiers empirical techniques including randomised experiments. In policy areas, he leads a high-profile government policy think tank to advise the Vice President in taking strategic policy decisions on poverty alleviation and social development. He has extensive knowledge in conducting monitoring and evaluation as well as using the knowledge generated from the research for policy advocacy, capacity building and knowledge management

 

 

Nigeria National Multidimensional Poverty Index

February 1st, Wednesday 2023

Zoom and In-Person

 

Speaker:

Sola Afolayan works at The Presidency, and is the National Coordinator of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) project, in Nigeria. The MPI; a poverty measurement and policy tool, is an intervention under the Nigerian Government’s National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS), which is used in complement with monetary poverty measurement, to understand the country’s poverty dynamics.In the last 22 years, Sola has led teams and held leadership positions across 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. At these roles, she sought to shape policy discourses in poverty reduction, social protection, budget performance, infrastructure financing, rural electrification, gender related issues, and in deploying public-private partnerships to address conflicts in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.She describes her career highlight as the recent launch of the Nigeria MPI report by the President of Nigeria, and also in 2015 when she helped set up the framework for a GBP 37 Million programme, where 186kWp solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems each were installed at 11 Clinics and 172 public schools in rural and per-urban areas of Lagos State; resulting in positive health and education outcomes, with over 140,000 homes being solar powered.

 

Multidimensional Poverty in Europe. A Longitudinal Perspective

February 22th, Wednesday 2023
Zoom and In-Person

Most analyses of multidimensional poverty use cross-sectional data. Consequently very little is known about multidimensional poverty dynamics at the micro-level. This paper uses panel data of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for 19 countries over 2016–2020 to analyse a multidimensional poverty index broadly consistent with previous work using the same data. Technically, I build on previous research proposing analyses of transitions in multidimensional poverty and its deprivations to illuminate processes which result in deprivations to accumulate. Specifically, I test whether (multidimensional) poor people are (i) more likely to enter a new deprivation and (ii) less likely to leave an already experienced deprivation than comparable non-poor. I show that both hypotheses can be explored in a single model per deprivation and argue that estimating a linear model is sufficient for this purpose. I suggest and illustrate that differences or ratios of the respective conditional probabilities may be computed on an annual basis. The presented evidence lends support to both hypotheses, although I also find cross-country heterogeneity. The proposed analysis is applicable to rotating and short-run panels and is not limited to the analysis of multidimensional poverty. Moreover, routinely computations of the proposed measures may provide timely information for policy makers.

Speaker:

Nicolai Suppa is a Research Associate at OPHI and a Juan de la Cierva Research Fellow at the Centre for Demographic Studies in Barcelona. At OPHI, he works on several research projects. Since 2018, he also co-leads the estimation of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI), together with Usha Kanagaratnam and Sabina Alkire.

 

Cumulative deprivations in the labour market

February 15th, Wednesday 2023
Zoom and In-Person

As the topic of job quality is garnering more attention in both the academic and policy making literature, calls for standardised measures of the concept are gaining increasing traction. However, prevailing measures based on dashboards of complex lists of indicators are difficult to interpret, especially across countries. More recently, the World Bank has published a working paper on “Global Job Quality” that measures multidimensional deprivations across 40 developing countries and is based on a methodology developed by Sehnbruch et al. (2020) and the Alkire/Foster method (2011). Initial studies suggest that the results from existing cross country, time series and dynamic studies are robust and very relevant to policy making. In particular, traditional ways of viewing the labour market in terms of formal (good jobs) versus informal (bad jobs) are outdated as modern hiring and employment practices as well as a shift towards the gig economy have eroded the stability and security of employment. As a result, this makes it difficult for developing countries to establish or sustain social insurance systems.

In advanced economies, employment practices that erode the conditions associated with traditional employment relationships are likely to have a similar impact on the sustainability of existing welfare states, as governments increasingly have to provide workers with additional income support as well as with other services that cover the cost of the multiple negative externalities associated with poor job quality (such as a higher likelihood of suffering from mental and physical health problems). A first step towards measuring these outcomes is therefore to establish a measure of cumulative deprivations in the labour market in the context of advanced economies.

This paper therefore presents the first multidimensional index of cumulative employment deprivations in Europe using data from the European Working Conditions Survey. Using the Alkire/Foster method, variables relevant to the employment relationship are grouped into three dimensions (income, job security and working conditions). Results confirm findings found across developing countries where job quality deprivations are not necessarily related to GDP per capita levels or employment rates. Instead, the regulatory environment of a particular country is the most important determinant of outcomes.

 

Speakers:

Kirsten Sehnbruch is a Global Professor of the British Academy and a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the Universidad de Chile, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of California, at Berkeley.

During 2019, Kirsten was awarded a British Academy Professorship to study the conceptualization and the measurement of the quality of employment in developing countries from the perspective of the capability approach. Her work informs social, labour and development policy more broadly as it allows for resources to be targeted at the most vulnerable workers in a labour market. She has collaborated with governments, international development institutions and NGOs in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Her work has been published by multiple journals such as World Development, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, Development and Change, Regional Studies and Social Indicators Review.

Prior to becoming an academic, Kirsten worked as an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, London. She received her MA, MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Mauricio Apablaza is director of research at the School of Government at the Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile, research associate of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University and Visiting Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Mauricio is also the director of the programme Conocimiento e Investigación en Personas Mayores (CIPEM) and president of the Chilean Commission for Quality of Employment and former member of the Chilean commission of experts on informal labour. Previously, he worked as Research Officer and Outreach Coordinator at OPHI, at the University of Oxford. Mauricio holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham and a postdoc at the University of Oxford. His research areas and publications focus on institutions, multidimensionality, and poverty dynamics.

Discussant:

Josefin Pasanen works as a Research & Partnerships Specialist at the UNDP Human Development Report Office (HDRO). Prior to joining HDRO, she was head of Capacity Building at the Latin America & Caribbean Office of Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL LAC), where she led a team that supported government, NGO, and private sector partners across the region to develop capacities for evidence-based policymaking, research, monitoring and evaluation. She is a development economist by training and holds an MSc In Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BSc in Economics and Political Science from Uppsala University. Josefin’s previous experience also includes research at the Swedish Agency for Public Management and the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, and policy advisory for the Mayor ́s office at the City of Stockholm.

 

 

 

 

 

Optimised Multidimensional Poverty Reduction. A Model Based on Policy-Makers Capabilities

February 8th, Wednesday 2023
Zoom and In-Person

This study supports national planners at determining the types and magnitudes of interventions, and the specific population groups that should be targeted to achieve a desired reduction in the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) efficiently. In the post COVID era, survey data and MPI methods aim to assess the impacts of COVID-19 on multidimensional poverty. This study proposes models guiding policymakers on the path to recovery from COVID-19 (or any other emerging crisis) and toward meeting the 2030 Agenda Goals, thus ensuring efficient policy action and efficient resource allocation.

 

Speakers:

Vladimir Hlasny, economic affairs officer with UN-ESCWA (Beirut), Poverty and inequality research team. Previously an associate professor of Economics at Ewha Womans University (Seoul). His work is on labor market conditions and the distribution of economic outcomes in Asia and the Middle East. His research has been published in general-interest journals including the World Bank Economic Review, Review of Income and Wealth, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Development and Change, and Social Science Quarterly. PhD in Economics from Michigan State University.

 

Hassan Hamie, economist with UN-ESCWA (Beirut), Poverty and inequality research team. Previously worked as an engineer for the Lebanese Petroleum Administration. Currently working on the topics of poverty, Inequality and inclusive development. PhD in Energy Economics from Technical University of Vienna.

 

 

 

Discussant:

Paul Makdissi is a professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Ottawa. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality. Previously he has held positions at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands). His main areas of research are socioeconomic health inequality measurement, the distributive impact of taxation and public pricing, and income inequality measurement. He was the president of the Société canadienne de science économique (the French Canadian economics association) for the 2021-2022 academic year. From 2017 to 2019, he was the thematic leader for the Equity and Inclusive Growth research theme for the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey. He has also been a consultant for many federal and provincial ministries and agencies in Canada, the World Bank, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.

 

 

Inclusive Absolute Well-Being Changes. An Application with Multidimensional Cross-Country Analysis

Monday, 21st November, 2022

Zoom and In-Person

The world has continued to witness prosperity in terms of poverty reduction and well-being improvement, but one cannot overstate the importance of examining whether the improvement is evenly shared or is being inclusive to all. In this paper, we propose a general quartile-based approach based on absolute changes that allow assessing and robustly examining inclusiveness of well-being for non-monetary indicators that are bounded in nature and can have both attainment and shortfall representations. Our empirical analysis of inclusiveness uses a multidimensional measure of well-being that is closely linked to the flagship global multidimensional poverty index and examines inclusiveness of well-being changes for 80 developing countries covering six different geographic regions. We observe robust improvements in well-being for most countries in our study, but only around three-fifth of all countries show robust inclusiveness. Further geographical analyses show that the same figure is less than one-third for the sub-Saharan African region. Our proposed framework could play an important role in jointly meeting the SDG targets of reducing inequality within countries and reducing poverty in multiple dimensions.

 

Speaker:

Suman Seth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Leeds University Business School and an honorary Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). He had previously been a Research Officer and a Senior Research Officer at OPHI between 2010 and 2015. He is primarily interested in Development Economics with a particular emphasis on measurement methodologies and policy-oriented applications. Previously, he has served as consultants to the Regional Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to the Development Research Groups at the World Bank, and to the Asian Development Bank. He has co-authored a book on income poverty measurement with the World Bank and a book on multidimensional poverty with OPHI colleagues.

Measuring Multidimensional Poverty. A Global Assessment of Data Availability and Data Gaps

Monday, November 7th, 2022

Timely and disaggregated data are essential for effective policy-making, and achieving the ambitious goals outlined in Agenda 2030. To this date, over 30 countries launched national Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs) to monitor SDG 1.2.2 and eradicate poverty in all its forms. In addition, figures on acute multidimensional poverty in over 100 developing countries are published regularly using the internationally comparable global Multidimensional Poverty Index. But there is a need to measure less acute forms of poverty, as well as to cover high income countries.

 

While advancements have been made on using administrative or census data for measuring multidimensional poverty, most national MPIs and the global MPI relies on household survey data for a comprehensive and timely assessment of poverty, and its changes over time. This presentation reviews the current data landscape with a focus on national and cross-national multi-topic household surveys that might be used to develop a genuinely global multidimensional index covering less acute forms of poverty.  It presents a comprehensive and detailed overview of the available resources and identifies important gaps in existing survey data. In addition, the presentation assess the feasibility of a new global moderate multidimensional poverty index with expanded indicator coverage and the inclusion of developed countries, while retaining frequent updates and sub-national dis-aggregation. The presentation proposes multiple options for a global ‘moderate MPI’ and evaluates each according to a set of common criteria. It also proposes a set of measures that could be developed exclusively for high-income countries. Last, the presentation will propose a set of recommendations for improving the availability and coverage of nationally representative household survey data – an essential resource for measuring poverty in all its dimensions, and achieving the overall goal of no poverty.

Speaker:

 Fanni Kovesdi (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Department of International Development, University of Oxford)

Since joining the OPHI in 2018, she has worked on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index and Changes over Time projects, harmonizing global MPI data to analyze trends in poverty for 80 countries. Prior to joining OPHI, she worked on an ESRC-funded research project on dual career couple trajectories and has completed internships at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Child Hub for Southeast Europe. Kovesdi received her Bachelors of Science in Politics and Sociology from the University of Bristol and her Masters of Science in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Her primary research interests are inequality, poverty, wellbeing, social identities, and migration.

 

Discussant:

Dean Jolliffe (Lead Economist in the Development Data Group, World Bank)

A Lead Economist at the World Bank and was previously co-director of the 2021 World Development Report on Data for Better Lives. He’s a member of the Global Poverty & Inequality team and the Living Standards and Measurement Study team. Dean currently holds appointments at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the Institute for the Study of Labor, and the Global Labor Organization. He received his PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

 

About The series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. ET. They are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

 

The End of Growth and the Return of Ideology: Economics, Sustainability, and Technology in Xi Jinping’s China

Friday, 4th November, 2022

The Institute for International Economic Policy was pleased to invite you to the first event in the 15th annual Conference on China’s Economic Development and U.S.-China Economic Relations. This conference is co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the GW Center for International Business Education and Research (GW-CIBER).

This inaugural event featured the Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, Scott M. Moore, to discuss The End of Growth and the Return of Ideology: Economics, Sustainability, and Technology in Xi Jinping’s China. John Helveston (GWU) provided discussant remarks, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Barbara Stallings moderated the event.

If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it is that the world is bound together by shared challenges—and that at the center of those challenges stands China. Thanks to decades of breakneck growth and development, Chinese officials, businesses, and institutions now play a critical role in every major global issue, from climate change to biotechnology. But China’s recent 20th Party Congress shows that Xi Jinping’s China is charting a very different path toward addressing these issues, all in the context of slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

This talk drew on a recently-published book, China’s Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology are Reshaping China’s Rise and the World’s Future, to re-envision China’s role in the world in terms of sustainability and technology. This reframing is essential both because none of these increasingly pressing, shared global challenges can be tackled without China, and because they are reshaping China’s economy and its foreign policy, with major implications for the world at large. At the same time, sustainability and technology issues present opportunities for intensified economic, geopolitical, and ideological competition—a reality that Beijing recognizes.

Drawing on the book, this talk explains that the danger is that China’s next act will drive divergence on the rules and standards the world desperately needs to tackle shared challenges in the decades ahead. In some areas, like clean technology development, competition can be good for the planet. But in others, it could be catastrophic: only cooperation can lower the risks of artificial intelligence and other disruptive new technologies.

With a particular focus on climate change, this talk addressed China’s role in providing global public goods and addressing global challenges, against a backdrop of growing economic, geopolitical, and ideological rivalry with other powers.

 

Speakers:

Scott M. Moore is a political scientist, university administrator, and former policymaker whose career focuses on China, sustainability, and emerging technology. As Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, Scott Moore works with faculty members from across the University to design, implement, and highlight innovative, high-impact global research initiatives in areas including sustainability and emerging technology. Dr. Moore directs Penn Global’s four research and engagement fund programs, including those designed to support faculty-led projects in China, India, and Africa as well as its At-Risk Scholars Program. In addition, Dr. Moore conducts research as an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and The Water Center at Penn, and teaches in the Department of Political Science.

 

Discussant:

 

John Helveston is interested in understanding the factors that shape technological change, with a particular focus on transitioning to more sustainable and energy-saving technologies. Within this broader category, he studies consumer preferences and market demand for new technologies as well as relationships between innovation, industry structure, and technology policy. He has explored these themes in the context of China’s rapidly developing electric vehicle industry. He applies an interdisciplinary approach to research, with expertise in discrete choice modeling and conjoint analysis as well as interview-based case studies.

 

 

Moderator:

photo of Barbara StallingsBarbara Stallings is a William R. Rhodes Research Professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and editor of Studies in Comparative International Development. She is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University. Before arriving at Brown in 2002, she was director of the Economic Development Division of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile (1993–2002), and professor of political economy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1977–1993). She has doctorates in economics (University of Cambridge) and in political science (Stanford University) and is a specialist in development economics, with an emphasis on development strategies and international finance. In addition, she works on issues of economic relations between Asia and Latin America and comparisons between the two regions. Her recent books are Innovation and Inclusion in Latin America: Strategies to Avoid the Middle Income Trap (2016) and Promoting Development: The Political Economy of East Asian Foreign Aid (2017). Her most recent book, Dependency in the Twenty-First Century?: The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations (2020), was selected as one of Foreign Affairs’ best books of 2020. She has taught at various universities in China and elsewhere in Asia; currently she is a distinguished visiting professor at the Schwarzman Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Unidimensional Underpinnings of Multidimensional Counting Measures

Monday, 31st October, 2022

Zoom and In-Person

We were pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) on Monday, October 31st, 2022. This seminar featured speaker James Foster (George Washington University) discussing “Unidimensional Underpinnings of Multidimensional Counting Measures.

The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and other counting measures identify and evaluate poverty based on the multiple deprivations experienced by people. Traditional unidimensional measures gauge poverty in a distribution of income (or another variable) using shortfalls from a poverty line. This paper provides an intuitive procedure for transforming unidimensional poverty measures into multidimensional poverty measures by applying a unidimensional measure to an attainment count distribution given a poverty line. The resulting multidimensional measures satisfy ordinality by construction. Other multidimensional properties are assured by their single dimensional counterparts, with the exception of dimensional breakdown which is central to multidimensional poverty but has no unidimensional analogue. Instead, this property is obtained by using an augmented poverty gap or the weight average of the first two FGT measures, which through the transformation generates the MPI.

Speakers:

Picture of James FosterJames Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr., Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the FGT poverty measures, the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

The many forms of poverty: Analyses of deprivation interlinkages in the developing world

Monday, 24th October, 2022

It is widely acknowledged that for efficient progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) their interlinkages have to be taken into account. The global Multidimensional Poverty Index is based on ten deprivations indicators each of which is aligned with specific SDGs. The overlap of these deprivations already figures prominently in the way poverty is measured, i.e. as multiple deprivation. In this paper we complement previous analyses with a novel account to explore how exactly deprivations are interlinked and how these interconnections vary across the developing world. More specifically, we suggest analyzing deprivation within our measurement framework using profiles, bundles, and co-deprivations which each illuminate particular aspects of the joint distribution of deprivations. Additionally, we also apply latent class analysis to corroborate our findings. We use data for 111 countries representing 6.1 billion people to document key patterns at the global level and selected findings for world regions and countries, which may serve as benchmark for more detailed analyses.We also discuss how our approach may (i) be adopted to different settings and (ii) inform multi-sectoral policy programmes.

Speakers:

​Ricardo Nogales (Universidad Privada de Bolivia and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford)

 

 

 

 

Nicolai Suppa (Centre for Demographic Studies, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford)

 

 

 

 

About The Series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. ET. They are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

The 2022 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index

Monday, 17th October, 2022

This seminar explored the latest findings of the 2022 update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). It included a presentation of the results of this year’s report co-launched with the United Nations Development Programme on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The global MPI report provides updated internationally comparable figures and innovative analysis of multidimensional poverty in developing regions.

 

 

An environmentally-augmented Multidimensional Poverty Index: The Case of Madagascar

Monday, 10th October, 2022

The continuing degradation of the environment, which constitutes a major threat to human life, urges scientists to find new reliable methods to measure the association between human well-being and the state of the environment. There is a clear nexus between human poverty and environmental issues. They have been identified as acute and urgent overlapping policy issues which demand good measures to address them jointly. At the same time, considerable research has focused on analysing the relationship between development or poverty and the environment, in particular with a focus on monetary poverty, food security, livelihoods, and other ecosystem services. This paper seeks to contribute to this policy and research work by providing a discussion of overlaps between multidimensional poverty levels and different environmental aspects and issues; and by building a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) which integrates an environmental dimension and respective indicators. Using Madagascar as a case study, we focus on forest, air quality, cyclones, earthquakes, and fire, which we use to construct indicators reflecting environmental deprivations. For this, we are merging MICS and DHS household datasets with spatial environmental data.

Speakers:

  Sabina Alkireis the Professor of Poverty and Human Development and directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford. Previously, she worked at the George Washington University, Harvard University, the Human Security Commission, and the World Bank. She has a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. Together with Professor James Foster, Sabina developed the Alkire-Foster (AF) method for measuring multidimensional poverty, a flexible technique that can incorporate different dimensions, or aspects of poverty, to create measures tailored to each context. With colleagues at OPHI, this has been applied and implemented empirically to produce a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). The MPI offers a tool to identify who is poor by considering the range of deprivations they suffer. It is used to report a headline figure of poverty (the MPI), which can be unpacked to provide a detailed information platform for policy design showing how people are poor nationally, and how they are poor by areas, groups, and by each indicator.

   Herizo Andrianandrasanais a Researcher for the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. Herizo is using remote sensing and GIS techniques to look at key environmental variables that can be associated with the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). He is now working with Sabina Alkire and Dyah Pritadrajati to write a paper on changes in MPI and environmental deprivations in Madagascar. Herizo completed his DPhil in 2017 at the Oxford Long Term Ecology Lab (OxLEL) Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. To OPHI’s knowledge, he is the first Malagasy person to be awarded a doctorate degree at the University of Oxford. He is a conservation practitioner with 18 years’ experience in community-based conservation approach including participatory ecological monitoring in Madagascar. He won the 2014 Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, presented by HRH Prince William, and the 2006 Ramsar Crane Bank Award.

   Alexandra Fortacz, works as a Research Analyst for OPHI, advising and producing policy briefs and supporting research projects. She has previously worked in international relations and development in Uganda and Strasbourg, for governmental, non-governmental, and international institutions. Alexandra holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in Political Science from the University of Vienna. Her research interests include conflict and peace, the capability approach, multidimensional poverty, human development, human rights, and citizenship.

 

 

  Frank Vollmer, is a Researcher for the OPHI, joining in January 2018 to support the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI) team. He is also a Lecturer in development economics at the University Jaume I, Spain. Prior to joining OPHI, Frank worked at the University of Edinburgh as a Research Associate in Agriculture and Rural Development. He also worked as a Research Fellow in Effective Development Cooperation at the German Development Institute. He has a PhD in Peace, Conflict and Development Studies from University Jaume I in Spain, and a Masters in Peace and Development Studies from University of Limerick. His research interests include measurement and determinants analysis of multidimensional poverty, and livelihood analyses, including ecosystem services for poverty alleviation assessments. His main geographical focus is on sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Mozambique. 

 

Discussant:

   Dr Han Wang, is a Postdoctoral fellow in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. His current research can be divided into two strands: firstly, exploring the relationship between local institutions and sustainable growth. Secondly, seeking credible strategies to reduce socio-economic inequalities. Han did his PhD in Economic Geography at the London School of Economics. During his PhD studies, he completed research consultancy work for ADB, EBRD and OECD. Wang’s research covers Asia and Europe.

 

 

 

 

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus on The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions

Thursday, October 27th, 2022
9:00 a.m. – 10 a.m. ET
Lindner Family Commons
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street, NW, 6th Floor
and Virtually via Zoom

We are pleased to invite you to a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh who created a model for combating poverty through microlending. He is the author of three books, including Banker to the Poor and A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Carbon Emissions. The event will be moderated by Prof. James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Jr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. Prof. Foster is known for developing the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) along with Dr. Sabina Alkire. Elliott School Dean Alyssa Ayres will provide welcome remarks.

Coffee and breakfast will be provided for in-person attendees.

About the Speaker:

Picture of Muhammad YunusNobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, pioneering the concepts of microcredit and social business, founding more than 50 Social Business companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, the Fortune Magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.” At the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Professor Yunus was conferred with the Olympic Laurel award for his extensive work in sports for development, bringing the concept of social business to the sports world.

In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Yunus is the recipient of 63 honorary degrees from universities across 26 countries. He has received 143 awards from 33 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United State Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Newsweek and Forbes magazine. In 2016 GWU awarded him the President’s Medal in recognition of his service.

Professor Yunus has been stressing the need for a basic decision of ‘No Going Back’ to the old ways of thinking and doing. He proposes to create new roads to go to a new destination by creating a World of 3 Zeros – zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty once for all, and zero unemployment by unleashing entrepreneurship in everyone.

His recent focuses are:

a) Professor Yunus has been campaigning for making the Covid 19 Vaccine as a Global Common Good since June, 2020, urging the World Trade Organization to place a temporary waiver on Intellectual Property right on vaccine to free up the global capacity to produce vaccines at all locations around the world.

b) Professor Yunus has launched a programme of creating a network of 3ZERO Clubs, each club to be formed by five young people. The programme aims to engage the global youth in initiating actions for creating solutions for global problems.

Welcome Remarks:

Picture of Alyssa AyresAlyssa Ayres was appointed Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University effective February 1, 2021. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia. During her tenure at the State Department in the Barack Obama administration, she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates.

Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018 and was selected by the Financial Times for its “Summer 2018: Politics” list. An updated paperback edition was released in 2019. She served as the project director for the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S.-India relations, and, from 2014 to 2016, as the project director for an initiative on the new geopolitics of China, India, and Pakistan supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

About the Moderator:

Picture of James FosterProfessor James Foster is the Vice Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

Human Development Report 2022 – Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives. Shaping Our Future in a Transforming World

Monday, November 14th, 2022

Zoom and In-Person

We live in a world of worry. The ongoing Covid-19 pan­demic, having driven reversals in human development in almost every country, continues to spin off variants unpre­dictably. War in Ukraine and elsewhere has created more human suffering. Record-breaking temperatures, fires, storms and floods sound the alarm of planetary systems increasingly out of whack. Together, they are fuelling a cost-of-living crisis felt around the world, painting a pic­ture of uncertain times and unsettled lives.Uncertainty is not new, but its dimensions are taking om­inous new forms today. A new “uncertainty complex” is emerging, never before seen in human history. Constitut­ing it are three volatile and interacting strands: the desta­bilizing planetary pressures and inequalities of the Anthro­pocene, the pursuit of sweeping societal transformations to ease those pressures and the widespread and intensi­fying polarization.This new uncertainty complex and each new crisis it spawns are impeding human development and unsettling lives the world over. In the wake of the pandemic, and for the first time ever, the global Human Development Index (HDI) value declined—for two years straight. Many coun­tries experienced ongoing declines on the HDI in 2021. Even before the pandemic, feelings of insecurity were on the rise nearly everywhere. Many people feel alienated from their political systems, and in another reversal, dem­ocratic backsliding has worsened.There is peril in new uncertainties, in the insecurity, polar­ization and demagoguery that grip many countries. But there is promise, too—an opportunity to reimagine our futures, to renew and adapt our institutions and to craft new stories about who we are and what we value. This is the hopeful path forward, the path to follow if we wish to thrive in a world in flux.

 

Speakers:

Yu-Chieh Hsu (Human Development Report Office)

Yu-Chieh is a member of the Human Development Report Office (HDRO)’s statistics team, working on the measurement and evaluation of human development and gender equality. Her work focuses on the Human Development Report (HDR)’s Human Development Index (HDI) and gender-related composite indices and indicators. Much of her research has been centered on health, education, gender, and inequality. She joined the HDRO as a Statistics Postdoctoral Consultant in 2014. Before coming to UNDP, she was a Senior Research Analyst at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). During that time, she was jointly appointed as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.Yu-Chieh graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a PhD and MPhil in Public Policy and Management. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Statistics from Columbia University. Yu-Chieh’s PhD dissertation focused on demography and applied statistics. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Demography, Population Studies, and Journal of Health Economics.

 

Tasneem Mirza (United Nations Development Programme)

Tasneem Mirza is an Economist at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where she served in several roles. Currently, she is working at the Human Development Report Office as a researcher and co-author of the Human Development Report and the Multidimensional Poverty Index Report. Tasneem also worked with the SDG Integration Team at UNDP supporting countries to prioritise and make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at UNDP providing policy and advisory services to country offices. Prior to UNDP, Tasneem worked at the Asian Development Bank HQ in Manila, where she initially joined as a Young Professional. There she supported projects and programs to promote trade and economic integration in South Asia and managed the Secretariat for South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation jointly with the Governments of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. During her graduate school years Tasneem worked at the Center for Global Trade Analysis Projects (GTAP) at Purdue University where she also completed her PhD in Economics. At GTAP she supported the development of the GTAP model/database and studied the impacts of trade liberalization policies on employment, poverty, and income.

 

About The series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. ET. They are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

 

 

IMF Africa REO

Wednesday, November 16th, 2022

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

via Zoom and In-Person

We are pleased to invite you to an event titled “Living on the Edge: A Discussion of the IMF’s Africa Regional Economic Outlook” on Wednesday, November 16th, 2022 from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm EST. This event will feature two panels. The first panel, “Building a More Food-Secure Sub-Saharan Africa” will feature IMF presenters Ivanova Reyes (IMF) and Qianqian Zhang (IMF) alongside discussant Moses Kansanga (GW). The second panel, “Managing Oil Price Uncertainty and the Energy Transition,” will feature IMF presenter Hany Abdel-Latif (IMF) alongside discussant Robert J. Weiner (GW). Catherine Pattillo, a Deputy Director in the IMF’s African Department, will provide welcome remarks alongside IIEP Director Steve Suranovic. This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for African Studies.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) recovery has been abruptly interrupted. Last year, activity finally bounced back, lifting GDP growth in 2021 to 4.7 percent. But growth in 2022 is expected to slow sharply by more than 1 percentage point to 3.6 percent, as a worldwide slowdown, tighter global financial conditions, and a dramatic pickup in global inflation spill into a region already wearied by an ongoing series of shocks. Rising food and energy prices are impacting the region’s most vulnerable, and public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades. Against this backdrop, and with limited options, many countries find themselves pushed closer to the edge. The near-term outlook is extremely uncertain as the region’s prospects are tied to developments in the global economy and with a number of countries facing difficult sociopolitical and security situations at home. Within this challenging environment, policymakers must confront immediate socioeconomic crises as they arise, while also endeavoring to reduce vulnerabilities to future shocks, building resilience. Ultimately, however, the region’s safety and prosperity will require high-quality growth and the implementation of policies that will set the stage for a sustainable recovery, helping countries move away from the edge.

Agenda

10:00-10:10 – Welcome and conjuncture chapter – IIEP Director Steve Suranovic and IMF Africa Deputy Director Catherine Pattillo

10:10-10:55 – Panel 1 – Building a More Food-Secure Sub-Saharan Africa
Ivanova Reyes Peguero and Qianqian Zhang – IMF Presenters
Moses Kansanga, GW Discussant
Moderator and Audience Q&A

10:55-11:10 – Coffee Break

11:10-11:55 – Panel 2 – Managing Oil Price Uncertainty and the Energy Transition
Hany Abdel-Latif – IMF Presenter
Robert Weiner, GW Discussant
Moderator and Audience Q&A

11:55-12:00 – Wrap-up

Welcoming Remarks:

Catherina Pattillo is a Deputy Director in the IMF’s African Department where she oversees work on several countries, as well as on climate change, capacity development, gender and research. Since joining the Fund from a position at Oxford University, she has worked in the Fiscal Affairs Department where she was chief of the division responsible for the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor, the Research Department, and on countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and the Strategy, Policy and Review Department where she worked on low-income country issues, and emerging issues such as gender, inequality, and climate change. She has published in these areas, as well as on Sustainable Development Goals, firm dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa, growth, investment, debt, monetary and exchange rate policies, aid, and currency crises. She received her Ph.D in Economics from Yale University.

Steve Suranovic is the Director at the Institute for International Economic Policy and an Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the George Washington University.  He is the current Director of the GW Global Bachelor’s program (Shanghai), and a former Director of the Elliot School’s Masters in International Economic Policy.  He teaches courses in international economics and microeconomics principles.  His research includes theoretical analysis of the role of ethics in economics, international trade policy, behavioral models of addiction, energy policy, and climate change policy.  (RePEcGoogle ScholarResearch GateSSRN)

Professor Suranovic received his B.S. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and his M.S. and Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. He has published in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of International Economics, the Canadian Journal of Economics, World Economy, and the Journal of Health Economics. His book titled, “A Moderate Compromise: Policy Choice in an Era of Globalization,” published by Palgrave-Macmillan, offers a critique of current methods of policy evaluation and choice and suggests a simple, principled, and moderate alternative.  He also has several textbooks about International Economics published by Flat World Knowledge. Professor Suranovic maintains two educational websites. The International Economics Study Center features a free online international economics textbook, and a complete Survey of International Economics course that includes a textbook, PPT presentations, video lectures, and problem sets.  The Ethical Economics Study Center features a collection of primers highlighting the role of ethical behavior in fostering good (or efficient) economic outcomes.  It also features case studies, including selected movie reviews, demonstrating how unethical behavior is often responsible for the negative outcomes attributed to free markets.

Panelists:

Ivanova Reyes is an economist working in the Regional Studies Division of the International Monetary Fund’s African Department.  Prior to joining the IMF, she worked at Gettysburg College, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Ministry of Economy of the Dominican Republic (DR), Superintendency of Pensions of the DR and Pontificia Universidad Catolica (PUCMM) of DR.  She holds a PhD in Economics from American University, a masters in economics from Georgetown University and a masters in applied macroeconomics from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica (PUC) of Chile.  Her research is focused on analyzing the impact of China’s economy on Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

Hany Abdel-Latif is an Economist in the Regional Studies Division in the IMF’s African Department. Previously, he worked as a lecturer (assistant professor) at Swansea University UK, where he taught econometrics, macroeconomics, and economic policy. His research covers commodity, financial liquidity, and geopolitical risk shocks, among other macro-financial issues. Hany is a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) UK. He has acted as a consultant at several institutions, including the UNDP and Cambridge University Assessment. He holds a PhD from Swansea University and an MSc from City, University of London.

 

Qianqian Zhang is an economist in the African Department at the IMF. Her research interests include fiscal policy, fiscal decentralization, gender, and development issues. She previously worked in the Fiscal Affairs Department and as a country economist for Afghanistan. She received her PhD from George Washington University and her master’s degree from Cornell University.

 

 

Discussants:

Moses Kansanga is an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is a critical geographer whose research explores questions at the intersection of sustainable food systems and natural resource management from a political ecology perspective. For the past decade, Moses has worked with smallholder farming communities in the Global South with concentration on sustainable agriculture and natural resource politics. He received his PHD at University of Western Ontario.

 

Robert Weiner is the director of the Master of Science in International Business program and a professor of international business, public policy & public administration, and international affairs at the George Washington University School of Business, Washington D.C. He serves concurrently as deputy director of the Master of Science in Government Contracts, a joint program of the GW Schools of Business and Law. He is a faculty director of the Business School’s Center for International Business Education and Research, and an affiliate of the Elliott School of International Affairs’ Institute for International Economic Policy, Institute for Middle East Studies, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, and Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He is also senior advisor to the Brattle Group. He received his PhD from Harvard University.

Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty

Wednesday, September 28th, 2022

We are pleased to invite you to a book launch event featuring Scott MacMillan to discuss his recent book Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty. This event will consist of introductions by IIEP’s Steven Suranovic, a fireside chat between Chair of the GWU Economics Department Stephen Smith and author Scott MacMillan, a book reading, and a short video presentation. Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A and book signing with the author. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Hope Over Fate tells the story of Fazle Hasan Abed, who Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times called “one of the unsung heroes of modern times.” Fazle Hasan Abed was a mild-mannered accountant who may be the most influential man most people have never even heard of. As the founder of BRAC, his work had a profound impact on the lives of millions. A former finance executive with almost no experience in relief aid, he founded BRAC, originally the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee, in 1972, aiming to help a few thousand war refugees. A half-century later, BRAC is by many measures the largest nongovernmental organization in the world—and by many accounts, the most effective anti-poverty program ever.

With 100,000 BRAC employees reaching more than 100 million people in Asia and Africa, Abed’s methods changed the way global policymakers think about poverty. By the time of his death at eighty-three in December 2019, he was revered in international development circles. Yet among the wider public, he remained largely unknown. His story has never been told—until now. This is the story of a man who lived a life of complexity, blemishes and all, driven by the conviction that in the dominion of human lives, hope will ultimately triumph over fate.

This event is co-sponsored by BRAC, the GW Department of Economics, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP).

About the Author:

Picture of Scott MacMillanScott MacMillan works as Director of Learning and Innovation for BRAC USA, where he manages BRAC USA’s portfolio of research grants along with other special projects. A former journalist, he served as the speechwriter of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC, prior to Abed’s death in 2019.

 

 

 

 

About the Host:

Picture of Stephen SmithStephen Smith is Chair of the Department of Economics, and Professor of Economics and International Affairs. He also served as the Director of IIEP from 2009-2012, and 2015-2017. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University and has been a UNICEF Senior Research Fellow, a Fulbright Research Scholar, a Jean Monnet Research Fellow, an IZA Research Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, a member of the Advisory Council of BRAC USA, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. In the 1990s, he designed and served as first director of GW’s International Development Studies Program. 

He is Principal Investigator for the research project, “Complementarities of Training, Technology, and Credit in Smallholder Agriculture: Impact, Sustainability, and Policy for Scaling-up in Senegal and Uganda,” funded by BASIS / USAID.

From 2004-2008, he served as co-Principal Investigator, along with Prof. Jim Williams, of GW’s partnership with BRAC University (in Bangladesh).

Smith has done on-site research and program work in several regions of the developing world including Bangladesh, China, Ecuador, India, Senegal, Slovenia, and Uganda. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, the International Labour Office (ILO, Geneva), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), USAID, and the World Institute for Development Economics Research (UN-WIDER, Helsinki). Smith has also conducted extensive research on the economics of employee participation, including works councils, ESOPs, and labor cooperatives, which has included on-site research in Italy, Spain, and Germany.

All attendees are welcome to attend this event in person at the address below or via Zoom. We require that guests follow the George Washington University Visitor guidelines.

Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Family Commons, Suite 602
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Spatial Spillovers from Urban Redevelopments: Evidence from Mumbai’s Textile Mills

Tuesday, March 29th, 2022
12:30 – 2:00 p.m. ET
via Zoom

This paper examines the effects of redeveloping central parts of developing country cities with high-rise, market rate buildings. We exploit a unique policy experiment in Mumbai that suddenly led 15% of central city land occupied by the city’s defunct textile mills to be redeveloped into high-rises during the 2000s. To measure the spatial spillovers from this new construction, we digitize a host of new spatially disaggregated administrative data and use machine vision and text classification techniques to measure changing slums and demographic composition nearby. We find evidence of sizable local spillovers that increase formal sector house prices and drive a process of gentrification where slums, low-skill population shares and informal employment all fall. To disentangle the source of these spillovers and quantify indirect and overall welfare effects, we develop and estimate a dynamic quantitative spatial model with informal floorspace, non-homothetic preferences and relocation frictions.

About the Speaker:

picture_of_Nick_TsivanidisNick Tsivanidis is an Assistant Professor in the Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. I am also Co-Director of the Cities Research Programme at the International Growth Centre (IGC). His interests lie across urban and spatial economics, development and applied macroeconomics. My research centers on connecting theory with empirics that combine new sources of granular data with natural experiments to learn about the process of urbanization in developing countries.

 

Measuring Vulnerability to Multidimensional Poverty with Bayesian Network Classifiers

Monday, March 7th, 2022
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) on March 7, 2022 with panelist remarks from Mauricio Gallardo, Associate Professor of Econometrics and Statistical Methods at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile.

Bayesian network methods have recently gained great popularity in machine learning literature and applications to model uncertainty in complex phenomena that include relationships between multiple random variables. However, these models are not commonly applied in economics and development studies. Here, we introduce the Bayesian network classifier models to estimate the probability of a person to be welfare deprived in one and multiple dimensions. These probabilities are then used for measuring vulnerability to multidimensional poverty (VMP) in four alternative measurement frameworks. Currently, two of them can be found in the literature, but have been estimated with Probit and Logit models, which are unidimensional strategies. Instead of that, in this study, we follow a multidimensional strategy to solve an estimation problem that is multidimensional in nature. Two new VMP measurement procedures based on Bayesian network classifiers estimates are also introduced in this article. We illustrate the four estimation procedures using the household survey and the census data from Chile 2017. A 5-fold cross-validation exercise verifies a high predictive performance of these Bayesian network classifier models, with the highest accuracy being that of one of the new measurements that we put forward. Our findings reveal that the Bayesian network classifier models offer an adequate alternative to face the policy challenge of measuring vulnerability to multidimensional poverty.

 

About the Speaker

Mauricio Gallardo is Associate Professor at Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile where he teaches Econometrics and Statistical Methods. He holds a master’s degree in Philosophy from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, a master’s degree in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina. Before entering the academy, he worked for the Statistical Division at the Central Bank of Chile. He has also worked providing technical assistance to international organizations on statistical issues. His research interests are related to poverty, vulnerability, and inequality of opportunities.

About the Discussant

Stefan Sperlich made his diploma in mathematics at the University of Göttingen and holds a PhD in economics from the Humboldt University of Berlin. From 1998 to 2006 he was Professor for statistics at the University Carlos III de Madrid, from 2006 to 2010 chair of econometrics at the University of Göttingen, and is since 2010 professor for statistics and econometrics at the University of Geneva. His research interests are ranging from nonparametric statistics over small area statistics to empirical economics, in particular impact evaluation methods. He has been working since about 15 years as consultant for regional, national and international institutions, participated in development programs like EUROSOCIAL, is cofounder of the research center ‘Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing Countries’ at the University of Göttingen, and is research fellow at the Center for Evaluation and Development (Mannheim, Germany). He published in various top ranked scientific journals of different fields and was awarded with the Koopmans econometric theory prize (among others).

About the Series

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. EST. They will be hosted by IIEP Professor James Foster and are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

 

 

 

 

Multidimensional Poverty in Brazil in the Early 21st Century – Evidence from the Demographic Census

Monday, February 28th, 2022
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) on February 28, 2022 with panelist remarks from Adriana Stankiewicz Serra, a Research Associate at the Institute of Economics of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, and discussant remarks from Iñaki Permanyer, an ICREA Research Professor working at the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

The paper examines multidimensional poverty in Brazil in 2000 and 2010, based on the microdata of the Demographic Censuses. Our analysis is disaggregated into five classes of municipalities according to their degree of urbanisation and remoteness, highlighting wide rural–urban inequalities in the levels and dynamics of poverty. We compare estimates of traditional monetary poverty with multidimensional poverty measures based on two methods: (i) the Alkire-Foster counting identification approach; and (ii) the Permanyer two-stage poverty identification approach. The two-stage approach introduces the concepts of complementarity/substitutability within and across poverty dimensions, which enables a more precise identification of the population targeted by anti-poverty policies. All methods highlight substantial progress in poverty alleviation. In absolute terms, the reduction in the incidence of multidimensional poverty was significantly larger in the initially poorest areas—rural and intermediate municipalities, as well as those in the North and North–East regions. Important advances were made in standard of living, especially in the access to electricity, durable consumer goods and private bathrooms in the households in rural and intermediate municipalities. However, remote municipalities remain relatively poorer from any perspective, facing more difficulties in reducing monetary poverty.

About the Speaker

Adriana Stankiewicz Serra is a Research Associate at the Institute of Economics of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.

 

 

 

About the Discussant 

Iñaki Permanyer, an ICREA Research Professor working at the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

 

Profiling Gendered Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Monday, February 21st, 2022
11:00 – 12:15 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) on Monday, February 21st, 2022. This event featured Kehinde Omotoso presenting “Profiling Gendered Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa” and Jacob Assa as a discussant.

 

About the Speaker:

Kehinde O. OmotosoKehinde O. Omotoso holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research covers a wide range of development issues relating to multidimensional poverty, health, gender, climate change and food security. Her research and policy experience spans over a decade during which she has gained a deep understanding of the microeconomic factors that determine poverty and health inequality in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. She contributes regularly to the policy discourse on multidimensional poverty in the context of sustainable development goals (SDGs). She has presented several research papers in both national and international conferences, seminars and workshops. She has a number of research articles published in reputable journals. She is currently on a post-doctoral research fellowship

 About the Discussant:

Picture of Jacob AssaJacob Assa is a Strategic Advisor with UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa. He began his U.N. career 22 years ago as a statistician and then chief of section (DESA/UNSD), focusing on macroeconomic aggregates and development indicators. In this role he was the chief editor of three flagship statistical publications. More recently Jacob worked as an economist focusing on both the least developed countries (at UN-OHRLLS) and UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR). At UN-OHRLLS, he co-authored the annual SG’s report as well as the flagship publication – State of the LDCs. At UNDP, Jacob co-authored the two most recent HDRs – Inequality in Human Development (2019) and The next frontier: Human development and the Anthropocene (2020). He also developed UNDP’s proposal for a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, which the Administrator has referred to as an example of thought leadership. Jacob holds a Ph.D. in Economics (2015) from the New School for Social Research and his doctoral dissertation – The Financialization of GDP: Implications for economic theory and policy – has been published as a book by Routledge. He has published in peer-reviewed journals on inequality and growth, financialization, peacebuilding and development, and the political economy of national accounting, most recently in the journals Ecological Economics and New Political Economy.

About the Series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI).

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

 

The Distribution of Wealth in Germany 1895-2018

Monday, February 7th, 2022
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to the 16th webinar of the “Facing Inequality” series, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy. In this webinar, Dr. Charlotte Bartels discussed her current research on “The Distribution of Wealth in Germany, 1895 to 2018.” This event featured Federal Reserve Principal Economist Alice Henriques Volz as a discussant. IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh provided welcoming remarks and moderated the event.

Dr. Bartels presented the first comprehensive study of the long-run evolution of wealth inequality in Germany. Her paper presents a combination of tax data, surveys, national accounts and rich lists used to study wealth and its distribution in Germany from 1895 to 2018. Her research finds that in the long run, the concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1% has fallen by half, from close to 50% in 1895 to 27% today. Nearly all of this decline was the result of various shocks that occurred between 1914 and 1952. The interwar period as well as World War II and its aftermath stand out as the great equalizers in 20th century German history. Her research also shows that two off-setting trends have shaped the German wealth distribution since unification. Households at the top made substantial capital gains from rising equity valuations that were counterbalanced by large middle-class capital gains from rising house prices and substantial savings. By contrast, the wealth share of the bottom 50% has halved in the past 30 years.

The “Facing Inequality” virtual series focuses on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe – especially those revealed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, within the academy and without, to present work and discuss ideas that can facilitate new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. This is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invite you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

About the Speaker:

Picture of Charlotte BartelsDr. Charlotte Bartels is a post-doctoral researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). For the academic year 2021/2022, she is a Kennedy fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. In 2020, she was Visiting Associate Professor at the City University New York (CUNY). Her research interests lie in the fields of public economics, labor economics and economic history. She is particularly concerned with the long-run dynamics of income and wealth distributions and the political consequences of rising inequality. Another focus of her research is the redistributive and stabilizing impact of welfare state institutions and their incentives. She contributes to the German series for the World Inequality Database (WID). Bartels received her Ph.D. in economics from the Freie Universität Berlin.

About the Discussants:

Picture of Alice Henriques VolzAlice Henriques Volz is a principal economist at the Federal Reserve Board. At the Board, Alice works in the Microeconomic Surveys section, which oversees the Survey of Consumer Finances. Her research interests focus on inequality and retirement. Current research projects include retirement preparation across cohorts and the wealth distribution and understanding trends in wealth and income inequality. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University and a B.A. from University of California at Berkeley.

 

Trevor Jackson is an assistant professor of economic history at George Washington University, where he teaches the history of inequality and economic crisis. He works on early modern European economic history, with an emphasis on inequality and financial crisis. His book manuscript, Impunity and Capitalism: Afterlives of European Financial Crisis, 1680-1830, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. It examines how changes in the scope for prosecutorial discretion, technical complexity, and the international mobility of capital diffused the capacity to act with impunity in the economy across the very long eighteenth century.  The project argues that impunity has shifted from the sole possession of a legally-immune sovereign to a functional characteristic of technically-skilled professional managers of capital, to an imagined quality of markets themselves, such that a constituent element of the modern economic sphere is that within it, great harm can and will happen to great many people, and nobody will be at fault. Dr. Jackson has taught courses on international economic history ranging from the early modern period to the twentieth century, as well as courses on capitalism and inequality, the history of economic crisis, and the history of human rights.  Prior to joining the faculty at the George Washington University, he lectured at the University of California, Berkeley.

About the Moderator:

Picture of Jay ShambaughJay Shambaugh is Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and Economic Inequality

Wednesday, January 26th, 2022
12:00 – 1:30 p.m. EDT

We were pleased to invite you to a Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy event on Wednesday, January 26th, entitled “The U.S. Federal Reserve and Economic Inequality.” This event featured Karen Petrou (Federal Finance Analytics), with discussant remarks by Mark Levonian (formerly of Promontory Financial Group), Bill Nelson (Bank Policy Institute), and Peter Conti-Brown (University of Pennsylvania).

In her ground-breaking 2021 book, Karen Petrou shows how the U.S. Federal Reserve inadvertently – but dramatically – exacerbated U.S. income and wealth inequality after 2010. Approaching the problem from a pragmatic, market-focused perspective, she demonstrates how the combined force of post-2008 monetary and regulatory policy made Americans more unequal, the financial system even more fragile, and voters angrier.

In the seminar, Petrou provided a perspective on what the Federal Reserve did to counter the pandemic-induced 2020 financial crisis and its inequality impact. She laid out the inequality-transmission channels of current Fed policy and discussed specific policy solutions, to address worsening economic inequality in a higher-risk financial system.

This webinar was moderated by IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Sunil Sharma, and had welcoming remarks by IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh.

Welcome Remarks:

Picture of Jay ShambaughJay Shambaugh is Professor of Economics and  International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

About the Moderator:

Picture of Sunil Sharma

Sunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, Sunil was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, he was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

From 2012-2020, he was on the Governing Board of the Mysore Royal Academy (MYRA) School of Business, Mysore, India. During 2012-2018, he was a member of the Advisory Board, Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics (SKBI), Singapore Management University, Singapore, and over 2011-2015, he served on the International Advisory Board, Institute of Global Finance, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Sunil has a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, a M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honors) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He has published widely on economic and financial topics, and his current interests include governance, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.

About the Presenter:

Picture of Karen Petrou Karen Petrou is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Federal Financial Analytics, Inc., a privately-held company that since 1985 has provided analytical and advisory services on legislative, regulatory, and public-policy issues affecting financial services companies doing business in the U.S. and abroad. Petrou is a frequent speaker on topics affecting the financial services industry. In addition to testifying before the U.S. Congress, she has spoken before the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago, the European Central Bank, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the International Monetary Fund, the Clearing House, the Bank Policy Institute, the Institute of International Bankers, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Japanese Diet, and many other governmental, industry and academic groups. She has also authored numerous articles in publications such as the American Banker and the Financial Times, and is frequently quoted as a bank policy expert in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Politico, the Hill, and other media outlets.

Prior to founding her own firm in 1985, Petrou worked in Washington as an officer at Bank of America, where she began her career in 1977. She is an honors graduate in Political Science from Wellesley College and also was a special student in an honors program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned an M.A. in that subject from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a doctoral candidate there. She has served on the boards of banking organizations and now sits as a director on the board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. In 2019, she and her husband Basil were named “visionaries” by the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

About the Discussants:

Picture of Mark LevonianMark Levonian was most recently Managing Director and Global Head for Enterprise Economics and Risk Analysis at Promontory Financial Group. He was formerly Senior Deputy Comptroller for Economics at the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), where he served as a key advisor to the Comptroller before, during, and after the global financial crisis. Mark oversaw quantitative examination support and policy research for the OCC and was closely involved in policy responses to the financial crisis, including the development of bank stress testing. As a senior regulatory official and economist, he led or participated in various Basel Committee initiatives related to economic modeling and played a leading role in the development of rules and guidance for multiple generations of the Basel capital framework. Prior to joining the OCC, Mark was Vice President for Banking Supervision and Regulation and Economic Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Manager of the Banking Studies Department at the New York Fed, Lecturer in Finance at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, and Senior Economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia. He has been an adviser/consultant to the World Bank, the IMF, and the central banks of Russia and Belarus.

Picture of Bill Nelson

Bill Nelson is an Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Bank Policy Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously he served as Executive Managing Director, Chief Economist, and Head of Research at the Clearing House Association and Chief Economist of the Clearing House Payments Company. Mr. Nelson contributed to and oversaw research and analysis to support the advocacy of the Association on behalf of TCH’s owner banks.
Prior to joining The Clearing House in 2016, Mr. Nelson was a deputy director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board where his responsibilities included monetary policy analysis, discount window policy analysis, and financial institution supervision. Mr. Nelson attended Federal Open Market Committee meetings and regularly briefed the Board and FOMC. He was a member of the Large Institution Supervision Coordinating Committee (LISCC) and the steering committee of the Comprehensive Liquidity Analysis and Review (CLAR). He has chaired and participated in several BIS working groups on the design of liquidity regulations and most recently chaired the CGFS-Markets Committee working group on regulatory change and monetary policy. Mr. Nelson joined the Board in 1993 as an economist in the Banking section of Monetary Affairs. In 2004, he was the founding chief of the new Monetary and Financial Stability section of Monetary Affairs. In 2007 and 2008, he visited the Bank for International Settlements, in Basel, Switzerland, where his responsibilities included analyzing central banks’ responses to the financial crisis and researching the use of forward guidance by central banks. He returned to the Board in the fall of 2008 where he helped design and manage several of the Federal Reserve’s emergency liquidity facilities.

Mr. Nelson earned a Ph.D., an M.S., and an M.A. in economics from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. He has published research on a wide range of topics including monetary policy rules; monetary policy communications; and the intersection of monetary policy, lender of last resort policy, financial stability, and bank supervision and regulation.

Picture of Peter Conti-BrownPeter Conti-Brown is the Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Co-Director of the Wharton Initiative of Financial Policy and Regulation, and Nonresident Fellow in Economics Studies at The Brookings Institution. A financial historian and a legal scholar, Conti-Brown studies central banking, financial regulation, and public finance, with a particular focus on the history and policies of the US Federal Reserve System. He is author of the book The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve (Princeton University Press 2016), co-author of a leading textbook on financial regulation (The Law of Financial Institutions), and author and editor of several other books and articles on central banking, financial regulation, and bank corporate governance. He received a law degree from Stanford Law School and a PhD in history from Princeton. He and his wife Nikki are the parents of four children.

IIEP Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy Series

The COVID-19 pandemic, like the global financial crisis a decade ago, has laid bare the cracks in the leading capitalist democracies. Fissures in the political, social, economic, and financial orders, accompanied by an increasingly stressed natural environment, pose serious and possibly existential threats to these societies, as exploding income and wealth inequality subverts the integrity and fairness of markets and elections, weak regulatory oversight increases the likelihood and severity of the next crash, and the visible effects of climate change threaten lives and livelihoods and drive migrations. The three spheres of wellbeing – political and social, economic and financial, and the natural environment, are each becoming more fragile while their complex interrelationships are producing wicked challenges. The IIEP webinar series on Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy examines these difficult questions and possible policy responses.

Distributional Impacts of Cash Transfers on the Multidimensional Poverty of Refugees: The ESSN program in Turkey

Monday, November 29th, 2021
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EST
via Zoom

Most evaluation exercises of humanitarian cash transfer programs use traditional metrics of poverty and study average effects of intended outcomes separately. We analyze the impact of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) cash program on the multidimensional poverty of refugees in Turkey, using a purpose-build Refugee Multidimensional Poverty Index. We conduct a nuanced causal analysis of the distributional impacts of the ESSN on the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty, and decompose effects for separate dimensions of poverty. Results show that the ESSN successfully reached the poor and significantly reduced overall multidimensional poverty among its beneficiaries. Significant reductions are found in the dimensions of food security, living standards and education. Incidence and intensity of poverty are shown to fall across the entire distribution. This supports emerging claims that these types of programs, still relatively new in humanitarian contexts, can be transformative for their beneficiaries to achieve multiple outcomes simultaneously. Reductions in the intensities for more deprived households stand out as a finding that outcome specific evaluations and multidimensional impact evaluations focusing on estimating average treatment effect would have missed, demonstrating the added value of the proposed methodological innovation to focus on the entire distribution of deprivation in this paper. By learning from the largest humanitarian cash program in the world, results provide important lessons for cash programs on multidimensional poverty of refugees elsewhere.

  

About the Speaker:

Picture of Matthew Robson

Matthew Robson works part-time at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) as a Research Assistant. He has worked on a range of projects since 2014, including: refugee multidimensional poverty indices, mismatches between poverty indexes and changes in poverty over time. He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of York, working within the Equity in Health Policy (EQUIPOL) research group to develop methods to evaluate the causal impacts of interventions on health inequalities. His research interests also span experimental and behavioural economics, where he focuses on prosocial behaviour and inequality aversion. For more information, see his website: https://mrobson92.com/

 

About the Discussant:

Picture of Josefin Pasanen

Josefin Pasanen joined the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) research team in 2020. She brings a background in research, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building for high-impact policy design. She has a strong interest in translating research into policy innovation. Prior to joining HDRO, Josefin was head of Capacity building at the global research center Poverty Action Lab’s (J-PAL) office for Latin America and the Caribbean, working to strengthen government, NGO and private sector capacities for evidence-based policies and programs across the region. A development economist by training, she holds an MSc in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BSc in Economics and Political Science from Uppsala University. Her research and policy interests center on data for development, sustainability and social inclusion, poverty alleviation, inequalities, gender and labour markets. Josefin’s previous experience also includes research at the Swedish Agency for Public Management and the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, and policy advisory for the Mayor ́s office at the City of Stockholm.

 

 

 

 

Predicting and Mapping MPI using Geospatial and Combined Disparate Data Sources

Monday, November 22nd, 2021
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EST
via Zoom

Poverty statistics are conventionally compiled using data from household income and expenditure survey or living standards survey. This study examines an alternative approach in estimating poverty by investigating whether readily available geospatial data can accurately predict the spatial distribution of poverty in Thailand. In particular, geospatial data examined in this study include night light intensity, land cover, vegetation index, land surface temperature, built-up areas, and points of interest. The study also compares the predictive performance of various econometric and machine learning methods such as generalized least squares, neural network, random forest, and support vector regression. Results suggest that intensity of night lights and other variables that approximate population density are highly associated with the proportion of an area’s population who are living in poverty. The random forest technique yielded the highest level of prediction accuracy among the methods considered in this study, perhaps due to its capability to fit complex association structures even with small and medium-sized datasets. Moving forward, additional studies are needed to investigate whether the relationships observed here remain stable over time, and therefore, may be used to approximate the prevalence of poverty for years when household surveys on income and expenditures are not conducted, but data on geospatial correlates of poverty are available.

About the Speakers:

Picture of Neeti PokhriyalNeeti Pokhriyal is a visiting scholar in the Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, where she was employed as a postdoc from 2019-2021 funded by the Institute for Security, Technology and Society. She is interested in modeling scenarios characterized by noisy, uncertain, and high-dimensional data coming from heterogeneous sources, with emphasis on reasoning under uncertainty and quantifying biases. She seeks understanding of problems targeting sustainable human development using knowledge inspired and data-driven computational techniques and is interested in exploring evidence-driven policy planning.

She was awarded a seed grant from the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, Dartmouth College in 2020 to propose methods that enable frequent evaluations of energy deficit in poorer economies in absence of any official surveys. She has collaborated with the Inter-American Development Bank, DC on studying poverty and inequality for Haiti from satellite imagery and mobile phone data.

Her doctoral work was awarded the Chih Foundation Research Award in 2019, which is a single award of USD 2.5K given for innovative research for the betterment of society at University at Buffalo, State University of New York, from where she completed her Ph.D in Computer Science at the Center for Unified Biometrics. During her Ph.D, she led a project funded by Gates Foundation for mapping multi-dimensional poverty using mobile data and has teamed with the National Statistics Office of Senegal and Sonatel. She has also collaborated with the Oversees Development Institute (ODI), London, and Datapop Alliance regarding poverty mapping work in Senegal.

Prior to Ph.D, she was a researcher in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and obtained here Masters in Computer Science from University of California, Riverside, where she received the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship. She also has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering with honors.

 

Picture of Nattapong PuttanapongNattapong Puttanapong is a professor and economist in profession. He is presently an Assistant Professor at Thammasat University and the senior economist at the research institute of Thailand’s Ministry of Finance. He has also worked as a consultant to various government agencies and international organizations such as OECD, ILO, World Bank, ADB and JICA. He was awarded with the Royal Thai Government Scholarship, through which he obtained his Ph.D. in Regional Economics from Cornell University. Dr. Puttanapong’s research interests are in the areas of economic modelling, spatial econometrics, and socioeconomic disparities.

 

Picture of Damien JacquesDamien Jacques is the lead data scientist of Rubyx, a company designing risk and profit optimization solutions for banking institutions in emerging countries. He has led projects across the globe requiring (i) designing and implementing algorithms to extract key insights from large unstructured data, (ii) develop strategies to leverage the entire data value chain of companies and development agencies; and (iii) successfully scale up data solutions in complex and multi-stakeholder ecosystem. Damien has extensive expertise in the use of non-traditional data for poverty monitoring and has contributed to the following projects:

– Combining cell phone and satellite image data for improved multidimensional poverty monitoring in Senegal. The results have been published in PNAS (University of Buffalo, Orange). 

– Tracking a socio-economic crisis in central America and its impact on poverty using a  series of indicators generated from the mobile phone activity of users in the country before and after the crisis (Inter-American Development Bank).  

– Estimate poverty at the individual level using mobile phone data in Uganda in order to target the poorest with cash transfers (Dalberg Data Insights, GiveDirectly).

– He also co-organized the poverty mapping initiative with the World Bank and the Qatar Computing Institute.The goal of the workshop was to share knowledge and make plans to better combine traditional development data (such as household surveys, labor force surveys and censuses) with complementary sources of big data (satellite, mobile phones, social media) towards achieving more accurate, timely and cost-effective measures of poverty. See blog Making a better Poverty Map.

Damien holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Agronomy from the catholic University of Louvain.

 

 

Accelerating Systemic Transformation: A Case Study from Wales (UK)

Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT
via Zoom

This was an IIEP/ASU-Thunderbird event on Wednesday, November 10th, entitled “Accelerating Systemic Transformation: A Case Study from Wales (UK).” It featured Jyoti Banerjee (North Star Transition), Jenny Scott (Apella), and Victoria Topham (Wales Transition Lab).

The Wales Transition Lab (WTL) is a systemic nation-scale program across Wales that reconnects food, health, and nature to deliver solutions that address the root causes of a widespread decline in wellbeing. Launched in October 2020 by North Star Transition, WTL brings together over thirty leaders across food, farming, environment, water, business, education, and health sectors across Wales around bold, shared ambitions. The seminar will provide an inside view of the ways in which WTL is helping to bring about systemic transformation and the challenges this effort faces. It will assess how this stakeholder-driven approach fits into governance and policy structures, providing a real-world case study of a comprehensive place-based attempt to create a better future.

This webinar was moderated by IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Sunil Sharma. IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh and Ann Florini of ASU-Thunderbird provided welcoming remarks. This event was co-sponsored by the Thunderbird School of Management, Arizona State University, and the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU.

About the Speakers:

Picture of Jyoti BanerjeeJyoti Banerjee is co-founder of North Star Transition, and project director of the team that created the Integrated Reporting (six capitals) movement globally. He also chaired the Integrated Thinking and Strategy group, a collaboration of over fifty global organizations, including the World Bank, BASF and Novo Nordisk. He has been involved in impact investing for two decades and used to be an entrepreneur in the tech sector. At North Star Transition, he leads the Finance Transition Lab. Jyoti has a master’s degree in economics from the Delhi School of Economics, and an MBA from the Open Business School. He taught entrepreneurship as an MBA elective at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Picture of Jenny ScottJenny Scott is a Founder Partner at Apella, an advisory firm that helps organizations build their purpose, strategy and reputation. Prior to establishing Apella, Jenny was an Executive Director at the Bank of England, responsible for leading communications throughout the 2008 financial crisis and the Brexit referendum in 2016. She was also co-head of strategy. Before that, Jenny was Economics Correspondent at the BBC. She is a trustee of Pro Bono Economics. Jenny is a senior advisor at North Star Transition.

 

Picture of Victoria TophamVictoria Topham is a chartered accountant who worked for over 20 years as a finance professional, training with PwC and holding commercial and corporate finance roles with leading media industry businesses. With the urgency for sustainable and systemic change to tackle planetary degeneration, she works with businesses and organizations to develop purpose-led business models. Victoria leads the Wales Transition Lab and is also vice chair of the Buckinghamshire Food Partnership. Victoria has a geology degree from the University of Durham, a Business Sustainability Management qualification from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Sustainability Leadership and a Professional Coaching Certificate from the Henley Business School. She is a qualified member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

About the Moderator:

Picture of Sunil SharmaSunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF- Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, he was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, Sunil was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, a M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honors) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. His current interests include rethinking capitalism and democracy, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.

Welcome Remarks:

Picture of Jay ShambaughJay Shambaugh is Professor of Economics and  International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

Picture of Ann FloriniAnn Florini is Clinical Professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, where she directs programs at the Washington, D.C. campus. She was previously Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University founding director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore; and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has spearheaded numerous international initiatives on global governance, energy and climate policy, and cross-sector collaborations including government, civil society, and the private sector. Her many books and articles have addressed governance in China, transparency in governance, transnational civil society networks, and the role of the private sector in public affairs. Dr. Florini received her Ph.D. in Political Science from UCLA and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University.

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021 Unmasking Disparities: Ethnicity, Race, and Gender

Monday, October 11th, 2021
11:00 a.m.  – 12:15 p.m. EDT
via Zoom

In this first event in the continuation of our seminar series on Multidimensional Poverty Measurement, jointly hosted by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford, the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University, speakers presented the extensive findings of the 2021 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI) Report Unmasking Disparities: Ethnicity, Race, and Gender. The global MPI Report is jointly produced by OPHI and HDRO, with results and report being updated each year. The 2021 global MPI presents findings on multidimensional poverty around the world, using the most recent data from 109 countries, covering 5.9 billion people, and including changes over time in 80 countries. For the first time, the 2021 global MPI includes findings for trends with up to three points in time, detailed disaggregations of global MPI results by racial and ethnic groups, gender of household head, and analyses on multidimensional poverty and the socio-economic implications of COVID-19.

About the Speakers:

Picture of Sabina AlkireSabina Alkire (Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford) directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. Dr Alkire works on a new approach to measuring poverty and well-being that goes beyond the traditional focus on income and growth. This multidimensional approach to measurement includes social goals, such as health, education, nutrition, standard of living and other valuable aspects of life. She devised a new method for measuring multidimensional poverty with her colleague James Foster (OPHI Research Associate and Professor of Economics at George Washington University) that has advantages over other poverty measures and has been adopted by the Mexican Government, the Bhutanese Government in their ‘Gross National Happiness Index’ and the United Nations Development Programme. Dr Alkire has been called upon to provide input and advice to several initiatives seeking to take a broader approach to well-being rather than just economic growth, for example, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (instigated by President Sarkozy); the United Nations Human Development Programme Human Development Report Office; the European Commission; and the UK’s Department for International Development.

Picture of Yanchun ZhangYanchun Zhang (Chief of Statistics, Human Development Report Office, United Nations Development Programme) has more than twenty years of quantitative research experience on a wide range of economic and sustainable development topics. She has published articles on international macroeconomics, climate change and development, economic vulnerabilities and social protection in refereed academic and policy journals.Prior to HDRO, she served as Chief of the Commodities Branch at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva from 2019 to 2020, leading analytical research, which includes a biennial statistics report State of Commodities Dependence, and capacity-building projects in a dozen of commodity dependent developing countries in Africa and Asia. Prior to that, she was Chief of the Commodity Policy Implementation and Outreach Section from 2014 to 2019, in charge of formulating demand-driven technical cooperation initiatives, mobilizing multilateral and bilateral funding sources and coordinating the preparation of publicity materials and press releases for outreach efforts.Before UNCTAD, she had worked at UNDP in New York from 2007 to 2013 as a Policy Specialist, conducting original research on emerging development topics that are strategically important for the organization. From 2003 to 2006, she was an assistant professor at San Francisco State University, teaching and researching on econometrics, statistics and macroeconomics. Prior to her academic career, she also worked for the World Bank’s Development Research Group.She holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Economics with specializations on econometrics, development economics and international economics from University of Virginia, U.S.A, and a B.A. degree in Economics with honors from Shanghai Fudan University, China.

Picture of Heriberto TapiaHeriberto Tapia (Policy Specialist, Human Development Report Office, United Nations Development Programme) is a senior member of the writing-research team at HDRO. He has worked on Human Development Reports 2015, 2016 and 2017. Previously, he served in the Executive Office of UNDP (2012-2014) and in the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (1998-2005). He has worked as a consultant to the IMF, UNDP and ECLAC. Furthermore, he has been lecturer at Columbia University (New York), University of Chile (Santiago) and University Diego Portales (Santiago). Heriberto holds a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University, and a Master’s degree in economics and a Commercial Engineering degree from the University of Chile.

Picture of Sophie Scharlin-PetteeSophie Scharlin-Pettee (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford) supports the outreach team in policy programming. She has worked on the Changes over Time project, which focuses on trends in multidimensional poverty, harmonising earlier data to the specifications of the 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Previously, she contributed to the data preparation, computation, analysis, and report publication for the global MPI revision in 2018 and the annual global MPI release in 2019.

Before OPHI, Sophie supported ESRC-funded research investigating dual career couples’ life course outcomes from a time-use, longitudinal, and cross-national perspective; she also interned at the Consortium on Gender, Security, and Human Rights, where she delivered a background paper on the political economies of peace-building, among other research activities.

 

Inequality and the Centrifugal Nature of the Labor Market

Wednesday, September 29, 2021
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
via Zoom

This was a joint Facing Inequality Series and Rethinking Capitalism & Democracy Series event featuring Peter Dietsch (University of Victoria).

Globalization and technological change are the two staple explanations of the income inequality between the relatively skilled and unskilled segments of the labor market. While recognizing their importance, this webinar turns the spotlight on another, neglected driver of income inequality. The mechanics of the labor market have a tendency to allow skilled workers to extract a significant wage premium. Arguably, the magnitude of this premium is neither just nor necessary for a functioning labor market. Interestingly, the policy response required to contain this centrifugal nature of the labor market differs markedly from the standard remedies to reduce income inequality.

Kathryn Holston (Harvard and World Bank) provided discussant remarks. This webinar was moderated by IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh with introductory remarks by IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Sunil Sharma. The event was co-sponsored by GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Seminar, organized by Professor Trevor Jackson.

About the Speaker:

Picture of Peter Dietsch Peter Dietsch is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. His research focuses on issues of economic ethics, notably on tax justice, normative dimensions of monetary policy, and on income inequalities. Dietsch is the author of Catching Capital – The Ethics of Tax Competition (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author of Do Central Banks Serve the People? (Polity Press, 2018), and co-editor of Global Tax Governance – What is Wrong with It and How to Fix It (ECPR Press, 2016). He has published numerous articles and book chapters, and is a regular contributor in the media on debates in his field. Dietsch received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation in 2021 and was nominated to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017. Prior to the University of Victoria, Dietsch taught at the Université de Montréal for 16 years. He has been a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, at the European University Institute in Florence, and at the University of Victoria.

About the Discussant:

Picture of Kathryn HolstonKathryn Holston is an economist in the Office of the World Bank Chief Economist and a PhD candidate in economics at Harvard (on leave for the 2021-22 academic year). Since 2019, she has been a Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration at Harvard. Her current work focuses on financial fragility during the COVID-19 crisis and banking crises throughout history. She is also interested in monetary policy, central bank independence and governance, and policymaking under low interest rates. Kathryn’s past work includes estimating the natural rate of interest for advanced economies with Thomas Laubach and John C. Williams, for which they received the Bhagwati Award for best paper in the Journal of International Economics. Previously, Kathryn has worked in the Monetary Studies Section of the Federal Reserve Board and as a Guaranteed Income Fellow at the Jain Family Institute. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied economics and math.

About the Moderators:

Picture of Sunil SharmaSunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF- Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, he was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, Dr. Sharma was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, a M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honors) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. His current interests include rethinking capitalism and democracy, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.

Picture of Jay ShambaughJay Shambaugh is the Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy and recently served as a member of the Biden transition team. His work includes analysis of the interaction of exchange rate regimes with monetary policy, capital flows, and trade flows as well as studies of international reserves holdings, country balance sheet exchange rate exposure, the cross-country impact of fiscal policy, the crisis in the euro area, and regional growth disparities. He has also served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. He is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Shambaugh received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.

IIEP Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy Series

The COVID-19 pandemic, like the global financial crisis a decade ago, has laid bare the cracks in the leading capitalist democracies. Fissures in the political, social, economic, and financial orders, accompanied by an increasingly stressed natural environment, pose serious and possibly existential threats to these societies, as exploding income and wealth inequality subverts the integrity and fairness of markets and elections, weak regulatory oversight increases the likelihood and severity of the next crash, and the visible effects of climate change threaten lives and livelihoods and drive migrations. The three spheres of wellbeing – political and social, economic and financial, and the natural environment, are each becoming more fragile while their complex interrelationships are producing wicked challenges. The IIEP webinar series on Rethinking Capitalism and Democracy examines these difficult questions and possible policy responses.

IIEP Facing Inequality Series

The Facing Inequality series focuses on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe, especially those revealed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, within the academy and without, to present work and discuss ideas that can facilitate new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. It is a platform for dialogue and debate. This series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster; Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics; and IIEP Faculty Affiliate Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History. It is co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series and co-organized by Professor Trevor Jackson from the Department of History and Professor Bryan Stuart from the Department of Economics.

Poverty, Climate, and Unemployment: Towards a World of Three Zeros

Thursday, September 16, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. EDT
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh who created a model for combating poverty through microlending. He is the author of three books, including Banker to the Poor. The event was moderated by Prof. James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Jr Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Vice Dean at the Elliott School of International Affairs. Prof. Foster is known for developing the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) along with Dr. Sabina Alkire. Elliott School Dean Alyssa Ayres provided welcome remarks.

About the Speaker:

Picture of Muhammad YunusNobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, pioneering the concepts of microcredit and social business, founding more than 50 Social Business companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, the Fortune Magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.” At the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Professor Yunus was conferred with the Olympic Laurel award for his extensive work in sports for development, bringing the concept of social business to the sports world.

In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Professor Muhammad Yunus is the recipient of 63 honorary degrees from universities across 26 countries. He has received 143 awards from 33 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek and Forbes Magazine.

Professor Yunus has been stressing the need for a basic decision of ‘No Going Back’ to the old ways of thinking and doing. He proposes to create new roads to go to a new destination by creating a World of 3 Zeros – zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty once and for all, and zero unemployment by unleashing entrepreneurship in everyone.

His recent focuses are:

a. Professor Yunus has been campaigning for making the Covid 19 Vaccine as a Global Common Good since June, 2020, urging the World Trade Organization to place a temporary waiver on Intellectual Property rights on vaccines to free up the global capacity to produce vaccines at all locations around the world.

b. Professor Yunus has launched a programme of creating a network of 3ZERO Clubs, each club to be formed by five young people. The programme aims to engage the global youth in initiating actions for creating solutions for global problems.

About the Moderator:

Picture of James FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Vice Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.

Professor Foster’s work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank.

Alyssa Aryes will provide welcome remarks.

Picture of Alyssa AryesAlyssa Ayres is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Dean Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. She was Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia in the Barack Obama administration, where she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her last book is, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World (OUP, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

The Spatial Economic Effects of Conflict

Wednesday, June 9, 2021
9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EDT
via Webex

This workshop showcased the most recent advances in the field of economics on conflict with a particular focus on the local and spillover effects of conflict, conflict and spatial poverty traps, and policies to mitigate potential negative effects of conflict such as infrastructure investment. While the policy focus of this workshop was on Africa, the presentations included a larger geographical coverage. The workshop was divided into two sessions. First there was a round table discussion with two presentations by the main keynote speakers, followed by a Q&A session. Second, authors presented their research papers, followed by feedback by a discussant and a Q&A session.

This event was jointly organized by the World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice, the Office of the Director for Regional Integration for Africa of the World Bank, and the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University.

Welcome Remarks

Deborah Wetzel, a U.S. national with more than 25 years of experience in development work around the world, is the World Bank Director for Regional Integration for Africa, the Middle East and Northern Africa. Prior to her current appointment, Wetzel was the Senior Director for Governance from April 2016 to April 2019. She also served as the Director of Strategy and Operations for the Middle East and North Africa Region, as well as Country Director for Brazil, from March 2012 until July 2015. Previous roles include World Bank Group’s Chief of Staff to the World Bank President from 2010 to 2012, and Director for Governance and Public Sector, where she directed the Bank’s work on taxation, public expenditures, decentralization, public sector reform and strengthening, governance and anti-corruption. From 2006 to 2009, she led the World Bank’s Economic and Public Sector Programs in Brazil, based in Brasilia. During that period, she developed numerous programs with state and federal governments to help improve the effectiveness of public expenditures and achieve better results. Wetzel has a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Oxford and a Masters in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. Her BA is from Smith College. She is the author of publications on fiscal decentralization, public finance, governance, and sub-national affairs.

 

Roundtable

Moderator:

Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, a Spanish national, is currently the Global Director of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice (GP) at the World Bank. Prior to this assignment, she was the Poverty and Equity GP Practice Manager in the Europe and Central Asia region. Carolina has worked on operations, policy advice and analytical activities in Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Asia, and was part of the core team working on the WDR2012, “Gender Equality and Development”. Her main areas of interest and expertise include labor economics, poverty and distributional analysis, gender equality and welfare impacts of public policy. She has led reports on poverty and equity, labor markets and economic growth in several countries, as well as social sector operations. She has published articles in refereed journals and edited books on the topics described above. Carolina has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.

Keynote Speakers:

Chris Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at The University of Chicago’s Pearson Institute and Harris Public Policy. He is an economist and political scientist who studies poverty, violence and crime in developing countries. He has designed and evaluated strategies for tackling poverty, including cash transfers to the poorest. Much of his work is with the victims and perpetrators of crime and violence, testing the link between poverty and violence. His recent work looks at other sources of and solutions to violence. These solutions range from behavioral therapy to social norm change and local-level state building. He has worked mainly in Colombia, Liberia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Chicago’s South Side. Dr. Blattman was previously faculty at Columbia and Yale Universities, and holds a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley and a Master’s in Public Administration and International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. He chairs the Peace & Recovery sector at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Crime, Violence and Conflict initiative at MIT’s Poverty Action Lab (JPAL).

Dominic Rohner (PhD, University of Cambridge) is a Professor and co-director of the economics department at HEC Lausanne, the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne. He is also Associate Editor at the Economic Journal, the PI of a European Research Council grant, the leader of the CEPR Research and Policy Network on “Policies for Peace”, a member of the Swiss National Research Council, and co-leader of the E4S group on “Evidence-based environmental policies”. Prior to joining UNIL, he held positions at the universities of York and Zurich. His research focuses on political and development economics, has won several prizes and has been widely published in journals such as American Economic Review, Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, and PNAS.

 

Academic Presentations

Speakers:

Nathan Nunn is Frederic E. Abbe Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in political economy, economic history, economic development, cultural economics, and international trade. He is an NBER Faculty Research Fellow, a Research Fellow at BREAD, a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA), and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) in the Boundaries, Membership & Belonging program. One stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the historical and dynamic process of economic development. In particular, he has studied the factors that shape differences in the evolution of institutions and cultures across societies. He has published research that studies the historical process of a wide range of factors that are crucial for economic development, including distrust, gender norms, religiosity, norms of rule-following, conflict, immigration, state formation, and support for democracy. His current research interests lie in better understanding the importance of local culture and context  for economic policies, particularly in developing countries.

Rémi Jedwab is an associate professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Elliott School and the Department of Economics of George Washington University and an Affiliated Scholar of the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University. Professor Jedwab’s main fields of research are development and growth, urban economics, labor economics and political economy. Some of the issues he has studied include urbanization and structural transformation, the relationship between population growth and economic growth, the economic effects of transportation infrastructure, and the roles of institutions, human capital and technology in development. He is the co-founder and co-organizer of the World Bank-GWU Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Conference and the Washington Area Development Economics Symposium. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal, and the Journal of Urban Economics. Finally, he is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Urban Economics and Regional Science and Urban Economics.

Maria Micaela Sviatschi is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She is also an affiliate at the CESifo Research Network, NBER development and political economy group, the African School of Economics and the International Crisis Group. Her research interests are labor and development economics, with a focus on human capital, gender-violence and crime.  One strand of her research explores how children start a criminal career in drug trafficking and gangs as well as the consequences of organized crime on economic development and state capacity. In particular, she has worked on the development of criminal skills in drug trafficking organizations in Peru and gangs in El Salvador. In addition, she studies how criminal organizations such as gangs and drug trafficking groups affect household’s behavior and state presence in the areas they control. Another strand of her research studies the role of state capacity to deter and improve service-delivery to reduce gender-based violence. In particular, studying the effects of women police officers in Peru and police street patrolling in India. In addition to this research, she has ongoing collaborative research projects in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Mozambique, Jordan, Bangladesh and the US.

Mathias Thoenig is a Professor of Economics at the School of Business and Economics (HEC) at the University of Lausanne, a CEPR Research Fellow in the international trade and macro programs and an elected Council Member of the European Economic Association. He is a Distinguished Scholar at IMD Business School and a Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. Mathias Thoenig received his Ph.D. from University Paris-1 Sorbonne and his B.A. in engineering from Ecole Polytechnique. He has held visiting appointments at International Monetary Fund, MIT, SciencesPo Paris, University of British Columbia and University Pompeu Fabra. He also served on the editorial boards of Journal of European Economic Association and International Economics. His research interests include development, international trade and political economy of conflicts and migration. He has published and forthcoming papers in several international journals, including, among others: American Economic Review, Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Harvard Business Review, Journal of European Economic Association. He has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2013 for his work on the role of distrust and grievances in ethnic conflicts.

Discussants:

Roland Hodler is Professor of Economics at the University of St.Gallen and Research Fellow at CEPR, CESifo and OxCarre. His research covers topics in development and political economics. His interests include how ethnic diversity, natural resources and foreign aid influence economic and human development as well as conflict, corruption and favoritism. His research has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; and covered by the BBC, the Economist, the Guardian, Le Monde, NZZ, and the Washington Post. He is also a member of the Bayelsa State Oil & Environmental Commission.

Mathieu Couttenier has obtained his PhD in Economics in 2011 at the University Paris 1 Sorbonne, Paris School of Economics. Before to join the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon as Professor, he was post-doc at the University of Lausanne and assistant professor at the University of Geneva. He was also visiting researcher at the department of political sciences at Stanford and at the economic department at Sciences Po Paris. His research is filled with interactions between economics and political sciences but also cultural, institutional and geographical issues. He focuses on microeconomic questions, in particular in the fields of applied political economy and economic development. His main research interests are in the understanding of violence and civil wars. He has published many academic papers on the role played by income shocks, natural resources or climate on the diffusion of conflicts over space and time. Some of his present research agenda also studies the role of natural resources in the local economic development. He has published in many leading peer-refereed journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Economic Journal, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Comparative Economics.

Elena Esposito is Assistant Professor at HEC Lausanne, University of Lausanne. She is an applied economist with research interests in the fields of development economics, economic growth, political economy, and economic history. Elena Esposito earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Bologna in 2014 and she joined the department of Economics at the European University Institute (Italy) as “Max Weber Fellow”. She spent research periods at the departments of economics at universities in the USA. She also worked as an economic researcher and consultant for several international organizations, participating to projects with UNICEF, the European Commission and the World Bank, among others.

Eoin McGuirk is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Neubauer Faculty Fellow at Tufts University. His research interests are in development and political economics, with a particular focus on the causes and consequences of political violence and social divisions. In his research, he has examined how variation in world food prices can affect the type and location of conflict events in Africa, and how politicians are more likely to perpetuate conflict when they are sheltered from its costs. Most of his research employs natural experiments in order to identify causal relationships. He has Ph.D. in Economics from Trinity College, University of Dublin, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Use of Multidimensional Poverty and Vulnerability Indices in the Context of Health Emergencies

Monday, May 24, 2021
10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

Health emergencies pose serious threats to human lives and livelihoods. They also risk exacerbating disadvantages by unequally affecting those who are already worse-off. Identifying how different population subgroups are unequally exposed, susceptible, or vulnerable to diseases, due to social, environmental, and economic implications of health emergencies is vital in developing equitable preparedness, response and recovery measures.

WHO and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) have been collaborating to explore how the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI) and national multidimensional poverty and vulnerability indices (MPIs or MVIs) could be used  in health emergencies, especially in the face of COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic consequences. This talk provides a brief overview of how MPIs and MVIs can be used in health emergencies to prevent or mitigate the impacts and to prevent exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities and deprivation. It presents four ways of using multidimensional measures in health emergency contexts, drawing examples from recent studies.

The use of multidimensional measures in the context of health emergencies is new, which invites further discussion, study and exploration by wider stakeholder groups.

 

This event and seminar series was jointly organized with the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office.

Meet the Presenter: 

Dr Niluka Wijekoon is a medical epidemiologist. She works in the Emergencies Programme at WHO headquarters in Geneva, in the Department of Health Information Management and Risk Assessment.

Dr Niluka is a technical expert in surveillance, early warning, alert and response in emergency settings. She has started her public health career with the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) as the Emergency Health Coordinator in Sri Lanka, during the ethnic crisis. She has first joined WHO in 2011 as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of WHO’s emergency hub in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka. She has been with WHO headquarters since 2014 and has worked in emergencies and outbreaks around the world, including in Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan, Mozambique, Rohingya crisis is Bangladesh, NE Syria, Yemen, DRC, and Indonesia.  Dr Niluka also manages WHO’s electronic tool for early warning, alert and response named EWARS-in-a-Box, an innovative solution for outbreak detection in emergency settings. 

Before embarking on a public health career, Dr Niluka worked as an emergency physician in both public and private healthcare sectors. She obtained her Master of Public Health from The University of Sheffield, UK and Master of Biostatistics and Epidemiology from French School of Public Health, Paris, France (École des hautes études en santé publique). 

Dr Niluka has been a human rights and gender champion from the onset of her career. She is the Gender, Equity and Human Rights (GER) focal person for her department at WHO and also an active member of the team which leads the research brief on using multidimensional poverty and vulnerability indices to inform equitable policies and interventions in preparedness for, response to and recovery from health emergencies.

Meet the Discussant: 

Juan Daniel Oviedo was appointed Chief Statistician of Colombia in August 2018. He has international professional experience in economic consulting for energy markets, and national experience in government and teaching. Previously, he was the Director of Institutional Planning and Research (2016-2018) and Director of the PhD School of Economics (2013-2016) at the Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá. In addition, he was the Founding Partner and Chief Director of LEICO Consultores (2011-2018), a leading consulting firm which performed as an expert opinion both for the private and public sector in regulated industries in Colombia and Latin America. He holds a permanent academic position at Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá (Colombia) since 2005. Juan has a PhD in economics from the University of Toulouse 1 (France) and BA in economics from the Universidad del Rosario of Bogotá (Colombia). 

 

 

Disaggregating the Global MPI by Ethnicity

Monday, May 17, 2021
10 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

Alkire and Kovesdi discussed how the painful topic of race relations, discrimination, and disparities across ethnic groups are in the public eye. Far earlier, Amartya Sen drew attention to the disparity in life expectancies between Costa Rica, Kerala India, and African-American men. Can we study ethnic inequalities quantitatively at a larger scale? This presentation disaggregates the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by ethnicity for 24 countries and 650 million people, using the recognized ethnic groups for which data were representative. Striking disparities are visible – ranging from pockets of poverty among groups such as the Roma, to yawning gaps between the average poverty levels. This paper illustrates the methodology – and the importance – of disaggregating global poverty measures by ethnic groups.

Jiménez discussed how part of the historic and ambitious nature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is its pledge to leave no one behind, including a specific goal to reduce inequality between and within countries. This move beyond national averages to look at the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities and voice within countries includes the target to empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

This presentation provided an overview of how the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) has operationalized the pledge to “leave no one behind,” with a specific focus on trends in inequality by race and ethnicity. It is based on the OPHI Briefing on global MPI ethnicity disaggregations.

Meet the Presenter:

Maren Jiménez is a Social Affairs Officer in the United Nation’s Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). At DESA, Ms. Jiménez forms part of the writing team of the World Social Report (previously the Report on the World Social Situation), the United Nation’s flagship publication on social development issues. Prior to joining DESA, Ms. Jiménez held several positions at United Nations’ regional commissions in Addis Ababa, Bangkok and Santiago de Chile. Ms. Jiménez holds a M.A. in Sociology from The University of Texas at Austin. 

 

Picture of Sabina AlkireSabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. Dr Alkire works on a new approach to measuring poverty and well-being that goes beyond the traditional focus on income and growth. This multidimensional approach to measurement includes social goals, such as health, education, nutrition, standard of living and other valuable aspects of life. She devised a new method for measuring multidimensional poverty with her colleague James Foster (OPHI Research Associate and Professor of Economics at George Washington University) that has advantages over other poverty measures and has been adopted by the Mexican Government, the Bhutanese Government in their ‘Gross National Happiness Index’ and the United Nations Development Programme. Dr Alkire has been called upon to provide input and advice to several initiatives seeking to take a broader approach to well-being rather than just economic growth, for example, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (instigated by President Sarkozy); the United Nations Human Development Programme Human Development Report Office; the European Commission; and the UK’s Department for International Development.

Fanni Kovesdi is a Research Analystat the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), where she is supporting research focused on the global MPI, moderate poverty and wellbeing, and technical work with national governments. Prior to joining OPHI, she has worked on research projects at the University of Oxford, the Centre for Social Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the regional office of Terre des Hommes in Central and South East Europe. Previously, she worked on the “Changes over Time” project which harmonized global MPI data across 80 countries to analyze trends in poverty. She has also supported previous releases of the global MPI through data work and report writing along with leading the ethnicity disaggregation of the measure in 2019. Kovesdi holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Sociology from the University of Bristol, and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Her primary research interests are in multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, wellbeing, and ethnicity and migration, particularly in the European context.

Meet the Discussant:

Rachel M. Gisselquist, a political scientist, is a Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and a member of the institute’s senior management team. She works on the politics of developing countries, with particular attention to inequality, ethnic politics, statebuilding and governance and the role of aid therein, democracy and democratization, and sub-Saharan African politics. At UNU-WIDER, she currently leads the projects Addressing Group-based Inequalities and The State and Statebuilding in the Global South – International and Local Interactions, and co-leads the projects The Impact of Inequality on Growth, Human Development, and Governance @EQUAL, Clientelist Politics and Economic Development – Theories, Perspectives, and New Directions, and Effects of Swedish and International Democracy Support. She serves as Helsinki-based research focal point for the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED) programme, and is a core member of the UNU-WIDER team in the African Cities Research Consortium. Under the institute’s previous research programmes, she was a focal point for The Politics of Group-Based Inequalities: Measurement, Implications, and Possibilities for Change (2014–18), and the Governance and Fragility theme of the Research and Communication on Foreign Aid (ReCom) programme (2011–13). Her work is published in various journals and edited volumes, including World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Oxford Development Studies, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Indicators Research, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Democratization, and International Peacekeeping. She is editor/co-editor of a dozen journal special issues and collections, and co-author of the first two editions of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which has become a standard reference on governance. Before moving to Helsinki, she spent three years at Harvard University as Research Director, Index of African Governance. She has also spent time at the London School of Economics and with the World Bank. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Meet the Moderator: 

Picture of James FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

8th Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Thursday, May 13, 2021 – Friday, May 14, 2021 

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium. The 2021 virtual-WADES will be hosted by the Georgetown University Initiative for Innovation, Development, and Evaluation.

Agenda

Thursday, May 13, 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm

2:00 – 2:30: Faculty Presentation:

Remi Jedwab (GWU): “Estimating the Spillover Effects of Foreign Conflict: Evidence from Boko Haram”

2:45 – 3:30: Student Presentation:

Deniz Sanin (Georgetown): “Do Domestic Violence Laws Protect Women from Domestic Violence? Evidence from Rwanda”

Discussant: Kenneth Leonard (Maryland)

3:45 – 4:15: Washington Area Research Showcase: Poster Session

4:30 – 5:15: Student Presentation:

Tomohiro Hara (Maryland): “Radio and racism during Apartheid”

Discussant: Alessandra Fenizia (GWU)

5:30 – 6:00: Faculty Presentation:

Shan Aman-Rana (UVA): “Gender, information exchange and choice over co-workers: experimental evidence” (with Clement Minaudier, Brais Alvarez Pereira, and Shamyla Chaudry)

Friday, May 14, 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm

2:00 – 2:30: Faculty Presentation:

M. R. Sharan (Maryland): “Something to Complain About: How Minority Representatives Overcome Ethnic Differences”

2:45 – 3:30: Student Presentation:

Luan Santos (UVA): “Deadly Politics: Political Connections, Intergovernmental Transfers, and Mortality”

Discussant: Jishnu Das (Georgetown)

3:30 – 4:00: Coffee Break

4:00 – 4:45: Student Presentation:

Federico Haslop (GWU): “Climate Change, Rural Livelihoods and Urbanization: Evidence from the Permanent Shrinking of Lake Chad”

Discussant: Gaurav Chiplunkar (UVA)

5:00 – 5:30: Faculty Presentation:

Catherine Michaud Leclerc (Georgetown): “Private School Entry, Sorting, and Performance of Public Schools: Evidence from Pakistan”

The Impact of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) Program on Multidimensional Poverty of Refugees in Turkey

Monday, May 3rd, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
via Zoom

In 2019, the World Food Programme in Turkey designed a multidimensional poverty index (MPI) based on data collected in wave 3 of its Comprehensive Vulnerability Monitoring Exercise (CVME), the CVME MPI. The purpose of the CVME MPI was to support programme targeting, to monitor programme outcomes, and to provide evidence-based recommendations for Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) programmatic adjustments. As part of the meta-analysis of the ESSN programme in Turkey, this talk provides a short review of the multidimensional measure used for the vulnerability analysis and its relationship with the ESSN programme’s targeting approach, and analyses the potential adjustments needed to create a refugee-specific MPI, a so-called Refugee MPI. The talk will further explore how the programme has affected refugees’ lives in areas like employment, fertility decisions, social cohesion, economy at macro and micro level by comparing beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries and host society. The ESSN’s hypothetical impact on non-applicants is also assessed and the study provides results on how multidimensional poverty among refugees would have been if refugees, who did not apply to the ESSN, had applied to receive the assistance.

 

This event was co-hosted by the University of Oxford.

Meet the Presenter:

Nils Grede assumed the position of World Food Programme Representative (WFP) for Turkey in September 2017. Before arriving to Turkey, he was the Representative in El Salvador. Prior to his current position, Mr. Grede gained experience as WFP Deputy Director in Jakarta, Indonesia (2013-2014). He temporarily served as WFP Interim Deputy Director in Brazzaville, Congo (2013) and WFP Interim Country Director in Mbabane, Swaziland (2012-2013). Before that he was Deputy Chief of Nutrition and HIV/AIDS Policy at WFP’s Headquarters. Prior to joining WFP, he was Director of International Recruitment Marketing at Boston Consulting Group (2008 and 2009) and Principal Director at Boston Consulting Group in Los Angeles, California (2001-2005). Mr. Grede is a German national and is fluent in eight languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew. He is quickly working on improving his Turkish. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Islamic and Middle Eastern Sciences received from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Grede has also received an MBA from Stanford University.

Meet the Discussant: 

Felix Schmieding is a Senior Statistician with the World Bank – UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement. Earlier work includes assignments with UNHCR, UNDP, and the UN Statistics Division. Felix has implemented or provided technical assistance to numerous statistical activities in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean – including living conditions surveys, labour force surveys, population censuses, and administrative registers. He has worked closely with the National Statistical Offices and National Statistical Systems of various countries, building technical and institutional capacity. He has also held key roles in global processes aiming at the development of international statistical standards under the auspices of the UN Statistical Commission. Felix has advised on the analysis of multi-dimensional poverty on various occasions, including for the 2012 population census in Rwanda and a 2018 survey of refugees in Kenya. He holds an M.Sc degree from the University of Oxford.

 

About the Event Series

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI 2020 offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Produced in partnership with the UNDP HDRO, the global MPI 2020 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 107 countries in developing regions and provides a detailed image of who is poor and how they are poor. It offers both a global headline and a fine-grained analysis covering 1,279 sub-national regions, and important disaggregation such as children, and people living in urban or rural areas, together with the indicator deprivations of each group. Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as sensitivity analyses, overlapping deprivations, changes over time (poverty trends), and inequality using the global data. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 10 a.m. EST. They will be hosted by IIEP Co-Director Professor James Foster and are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

 

Hidden Wealth

Wednesday, April 28, 2021
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
via Zoom

This was the 12th webinar of the “Facing Inequality” series, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy. This virtual series focuses on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe – especially those revealed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, within the academy and without, to present work and discuss ideas that can facilitate new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. This is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invite you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Facing Inequality” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Faculty Affiliate Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History. The series is co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series, co-organized by Prof. Jackson from the Department of History and Prof. Bryan Stuart from the Department of Economics.

In this webinar, Neil Cummins discussed his current research. Using individual level records of all wealth-at-death in England, 1892-1992, together with new estimates of the wealth-specific rate-of-return on wealth, he estimates a plausible minimum level of the amount of inherited wealth that is hidden. Elites conceal around 20% of their inheritance. Among dynasties, this hidden wealth, independent of declared wealth, predicts appearance in the Offshore Leaks Database of 2013-6, house values in 1999, and Oxbridge attendance, 1990-2016. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates at least 40% of the observed decline of the top 10% wealth-share over the past century. Cummins finds 8,549 dynasties that are hiding £7.7 Billion.

Marina Gindelsky (Bureau of Economic Analysis) and Jonathan Rothbaum (U.S. Census Bureau) served as discussants. IIEP Co-Director James Foster will moderate.

About the speaker:

Neil Cummins is an Associate Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics, where he also received his PhD in 2009. His research themes are “life, love and death”; Neil uses Historical Big Data to answer fundamental questions about economics, demography and history. Previously he has published papers on the decline of fertility in Europe, the effects of bubonic plague in London, the dynamics of the Malthusian economy, in France, and the lifespans of European Elites since the 9th century. Together with Greg Clark, he has documented the glacial rate of social mobility over the past 1,000 years in Britain. Currently he is using the individual information of hundreds of millions of English, 1838 to today, to describe and characterise wealth inequality, the hidden wealth of the English elite, assortment in the marriage market, and ethnic assimilation in England. This research will add new micro-evidence, on a population scale, for the historical development of, and the causal forces creating, inequality in contemporary Britain. His methods combine economic logic and historical sources with big data analytics. His research papers are available at neilcummins.com.

About the discussants:

Picture of Marina GindelskyMarina Gindelsky is a Research Economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Office of the Chief Economist. Her current research focuses on income distributions, including the newly launched Distribution of Personal Income, which distributes U.S. macro national accounts totals to households, and participation in the OECD Expert Group on Disparities in a National Accounts Framework. She has a wide range of research interests in labor, urban and development economics, and a diverse set of ongoing and published projects including forecasting and measuring multidimensional inequality, analyzing historical urban growth in developing countries, assessing immigrant assimilation outcomes, and estimating housing using Zillow data. Before joining the BEA, she consulted at the World Bank and completed a Masters in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in Economics from GW.

Picture of Jonathan RothbaumJonathan Rothbaum is a research economist in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. He works on the integration of administrative data into the production of income, resource, and wellbeing statistics. His research has focused on nonresponse, measurement error, and data quality in income surveys and on using surveys to study intergenerational mobility in the United States. Prior to joining the Census Bureau in 2013, Rothbaum received his doctorate in economics from George Washington University.

 

About the moderator:

Picture of James FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

Horizontal and Intersecting Wealth Inequalities in Mozambique – 1997 to 2017

Monday, April 19, 2021
10:00 a.m. EDT
via Zoom

In this seminar of the MPI series, a UNU-WIDER paper was presented.

Picture of Ricardo SantosPresenter: Ricardo Santos is a Research Fellow of the United Nations University World Institute of Development Economics Research – UNU-WIDER, stationed in Maputo, Mozambique, as Technical Advisor to the Centre of Economics and Management Studies at the Faculty of Economics of Eduardo Mondlane University. His doctoral research examined the post-conflict labour market and education sector in Timor-Leste, looking at the medium-run impact of exposure to violence and conflict produce on the households’ choices regarding education. His recent research has focused on the Mozambican labour market, school-to-work transition and on poverty and inequality. His previous work in the development field includes voluntary work for one year in Timor-Leste as a member of a Portuguese NGO and, Program Manager for Timor-Leste and Angola and Deputy Executive Officer of the same NGO.

 

 

Abstract: This study seeks to add to the research on inequality in Least Developed Countries, namely in Mozambique, by measuring and mapping indicators of between-group and within-group wealth inequality along geographic and ethnolinguistic identities. Using census data for 1997, 2007 and 2017, we adapt the Multidimensional Poverty Index applied by the Government of Mozambique to build a corresponding Household Wealth Index. We use it to identify possible intersecting inequalities, measuring between-group inequality along joint provincial – urban/rural – ethnolinguistic identities. Additionally, we find heterogeneous evolutions of group inequality between 1997 and 2017 among the country’s eleven provinces.
We find that, while there is a general improvement in the average household wealth indicators, there is a strong suggestion of increasing group inequalities between 1997 and 2017. While this is manifest throughout the country, in general, there is evidence that the Southern provinces may be experiencing a more equitable development. We find evidence that this evolution may be driven by a urban-rural decoupling, added to low internal migration.
These are insights from correlates. No causal inference can be made from this analysis. However, the differences in average wealth between groups, if perceived, may feed grievances. They should be better understood, so that underlying causes can be addressed.

About the Series: The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report Office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to announce new events in our special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI 2020 offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Produced in partnership with the UNDP HDRO, the global MPI 2020 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 107 countries in developing regions and provides a detailed image of who is poor and how they are poor. It offers both a global headline and a fine-grained analysis covering 1,279 sub-national regions, and important disaggregation such as children, and people living in urban or rural areas, together with the indicator deprivations of each group. Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as sensitivity analyses, overlapping deprivations, changes over time (poverty trends), and inequality using the global data. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire-Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars will continue to take place online on Mondays at 10 a.m. EDT. IIEP Co-Director Professor James Foster will host and the events are open to anyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

Quality-adjusted Population Density

Tuesday, April 13, 2021
12:30pm – 2:00pm
via Zoom

About the Presenter:

Picture of Vernon HendersonJ. Vernon Henderson joined the London School of Economics in September 2013 as School Professor of Economic Geography, having previously been Eastman Professor of Political Economy at Brown University, USA.

His research focuses on urbanization in developing countries, looking both within and across cities and regions. His current research looks at topics such as the evolution of the urban system in sub-Saharan Africa; factor market distortions, city size and welfare in China; spatial equilibrium models; the dynamics of investment in the built environment in cities, how colonial legacy affects sprawl and the spatial layout of cities; the link between ethno-linguistic diversity and urban concentration worldwide; and the role of geography and history in economic development.

His recent work is published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Science and Journal of Development Economics. He has been a co-editor of the Journal of Urban Economics and the Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, and serves on a number of editorial boards. He is a founder and past President of the Urban Economics Association.

Over the years, he has worked with governments in Asia and Africa directly or indirectly through institutions such as the World Bank and DFIDic on formulating urban policies.

Paper: Quality-adjusted Population Density, joint with Adam Storeygard (Tufts) and David Weil (Brown)

Abstract: Quality-adjusted population density (QAPD) is population divided by l and area that has been adjusted for geographic characteristics. We derive weights on these geographic characteristics from a global regression of population density at the quarter-degree level with country fixed effects. We show, first, that while income per capita is uncorrelated with conventionally measured population density across countries, there is a strong negative correlation between income per capita and Q APD; second, that the magnitude of this relationship exceeds the plausible structural effect of density on income, suggesting a negative correlation between QAPD and productivity or factor accumulation; and third, that higher Q APD in poor countries is primarily due to population growth since 1820. We argue that these facts are best understood as results of the differential timings of economic takeoff and demographic transition across countries, and particularly the rapid transfer of health technologies from early to late developers.

Revised Arab Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021

Monday, April 12, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
via Zoom

The session presented the final proposal for the revised Arab Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) framework, as a result of technical work undertaken by ESCWA, OPHI and the League of Arab States (LAS), and consultations with partner organizations. This revised Arab MPI was endorsed during the 40th ministerial session of the LAS Social Ministerial Council on 17 December 2020, as a basis for the forthcoming Arab Poverty Report. The presentation layed out the process leading up to the formal endorsement, the structure of the revised Arab MPI – its two pillars, and their dimensions and individual indicators – and the preliminary estimates of multidimensional poverty in 11 Arab countries using the revised index. The session also presented a brief introduction about the MPI Assist Tool.

Meet the Presenter:

Sama El Hage Sleiman

Ms. Sama El Hage Sleiman is a Statistician at ESCWA since 2015. She is also an epidemiologist and an Actuary by training. Previously, she has served as a statistical consultant and a university lecturer for more than 7 years. At ESCWA, her research interest focuses on multidimensional poverty and other composite indicators in the Arab region, such as the regional Economic Justice Index and the Egypt Governorate Competitiveness Index. She participated in the development of the Arab MPI, in its conception and revisions. More recently, she designed a web-based tool for computing MPIs, to be officially launched in July 2021. Currently, Ms. El Hage Sleiman is co-leading the Poverty Project as well as the Future of Work Project at ESCWA.

Meet the Discussant: 

Xavier MonceroXavier Moncero is an economist from the San Francisco de Quito University and Master in Economics from Georgetown University. Since 2015, he has headed of the Social Statistics Unit of ECLAC Statistics Division, whose areas of work include the measurement and analysis of poverty and income distribution, the compilation and harmonization of household surveys and the production and dissemination of social statistics. He coordinated the update of ECLAC methodology of income poverty measurement and is currently leading the work on a regionally comparable multidimensional poverty index for Latin America. He also serves as coordinator of the Statistical Conference of the Americas.

About the Event Series

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI 2020 offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Produced in partnership with the UNDP HDRO, the global MPI 2020 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 107 countries in developing regions and provides a detailed image of who is poor and how they are poor. It offers both a global headline and a fine-grained analysis covering 1,279 sub-national regions, and important disaggregation such as children, and people living in urban or rural areas, together with the indicator deprivations of each group. Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as sensitivity analyses, overlapping deprivations, changes over time (poverty trends), and inequality using the global data. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 10 a.m. EST. They will be hosted by IIEP Co-Director Professor James Foster and are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

Analysing Individual Deprivations alongside Household Poverty: Possibilities for Gendered, Intrahousehold, and Multidimensional Analyses

Monday, February 22, 2021
10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
via Webex

 

Most poverty measures identify a household as poor or non-poor based on the achievements of all its members. Using the household as the unit of identification enables a poverty measure to draw on information from persons of different ages, genders, and life situations, but loses individual information by summarising it at the level of the household. As a consequence, gendered and intrahousehold inequalities are not illuminated even when data for them exist. However individual indicators or indices lose information regarding the achievements of other household members, and face challenges in finding a structure by which to compare all genders and ages. This paper augments a household multidimensional poverty index (MPI) by applying individual-level analyses to individual indicators in that MPI, and analysing individual deprivations alongside the matrix of deprivations underlying an MPI. Here we focus on individually undernourished and out of school children. Analyses show what proportion of deprived (and poor) children i) live in multidimensionally poor households; ii) are girls vs boys; iii) live in households in which other eligible children are not deprived in that indicator. We also observe iv) what additional deprivations children experience besides the focal deprivation, and v) what proportion of people live in households where children of different ages experience different age-specific deprivations concurrently. Finally using data on completed years of schooling for all adults and children vi) we identify ‘pioneer children’, to illustrate the possibility of combining information on the deprivation or attainment status of more than one household members. This paper provides a prototype methodology that can be incorporated into standard analyses of household poverty measures that include individual indicators in order to shine a light jointly on individual and household poverty. We illustrate each aspect of the methodology with analyses of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for seven countries in South Asia.

About the Presenter:

Rizwan Ul Haq is a Research Associate at OPHI. He is also Assistant Professor of Development Studies at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics where he is Head of the Department of Development Studies. He has more than 18 years of experience in population and development mainly focusing on poverty, ageing and health. He has worked in the United Nations Development Programme in the preparation of National Human Development Report for Pakistan on Youth.

 

About the Discussants:

Cheryl Doss is a development economist whose research focuses on issues related to assets, agriculture and gender with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Among her research projects, she co-leads the Gender Asset Gap Project, a large-scale effort to collect data and measure individual asset and wealth holdings for men and women in Ecuador, Ghana, and Karnataka, India. This research examines best practices for collecting individual data on assets and also quantifies women’s ownership of and control over productive assets. Currently, much of her work focuses on how to understand both joint and individual ownership and decision-making within rural households. Cheryl Doss works with a range of international organizations on issues including best approaches for collecting sex-disaggregated data, gender and agriculture, intrahousehold resource allocation, and women’s asset ownership. Currently, she is the gender advisor for the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). In recent years, she has also worked with UN Women, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, DFID, the Africa Development Bank, and the UN Foundation on issues of women’s asset ownership. She has published widely in academic journals in economics, agricultural economics, and development studies.

Jeni Klugman is Managing Director at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and Senior Adviser at the Stanford University Center for Gender Equality. Dr Klugman’s previous positions include fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Women in Public Policy Program at Harvard University, Director of Gender and Development at the World Bank, and director and lead author of three global Human Development Reports published by the UNDP. She has published over a dozen books and major global reports, and (co)authored over 70 articles in peer reviewed journals. She regularly participates in major global gender policy initiatives, including the Lancet Series on Gender Equality; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s strategy on women’s economic empowerment; and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Advisory Committee on economic inclusion and global growth. She is currently a member of The Lancet Global Commission on Gender and Health; advising VicHealth, Australia to bring behavioral insights to advance gender equality; UN Women, the World Bank and partners on justice for women; the World Bank on the gender dimensions of forced displacement; and working with the UN Development Program on human mobility. Jeni holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Australian National University and postgraduate degrees in both Law and Development Economics from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She was included in the Apolitical Inaugural List of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in 2018 and in 2019.

These seminars are organized jointly with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office. They will he hosted by IIEP Co-Director James Foster.

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Multidimensional Deprivation Index: An Experimental Measure for European Developed Countries

Monday February 15th, 2021

10:00 AM-11:15AM EST

WebEx

 

In 2010 the Human Development Report introduced the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), a measure based on the counting approach of Alkire and Foster (2011)[i]. The MPI is currently being calculated for over 100 developing countries. However, developed countries were not covered, leaving a false impression that there are no multidimensional deprivations in these countries.

With the universality aspect of the Sustainable Development Goals, the need for a measure of overlapping deprivations for developed countries became important. This paper proposes a new experimental composite index, the Multidimensional Deprivation Index (MDI), aiming at filling this gap by exploring and assessing the simultaneous human deprivations in developed countries. It is based on the same counting approach as the MPI. Similarly, all the indicators needed to construct the MDI must come from the same survey. The experimental MDI proposed here is based on 14 indicators and identifies households and individuals that are acutely deprived in 5 dimensions: education, health, material standard of living, environment and housing, and work.

What is the difference between multidimensional poverty and multidimensional deprivations? Multidimensional poverty refers to individuals lacking multiple basic needs such as access to improved drinking water or improved sanitation facilities. This concept is more appropriate for developing countries. On the other hand, we prefer to use the term multidimensional deprivations to refer to individuals suffering deprivations in aspects that are not basic but that can be no less debilitating to the choices of the individuals and families experiencing the deprivations. Even though a household can have access to improved drinking water and improved sanitation facilities, it can still suffer a deprivation if it cannot keep the home adequately warm or if it cannot pay bills on time. This concept is more appropriate for developed countries. Applying the same methodology to developed and developing countries would give the false impression that there are no multidimensional deprivations in developed countries.

[1] Sabina Alkire and James Foster (2011). Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement.” Journal of Public Economics, 95, 476-487.

About the Presenter:

Cecilia Calderón‘s topics of research include multidimensional poverty, with particular interest in analyzing multidimensional poverty in children, the Human Development Index, inequalities in education and income, and gender inequalities.

Before joining the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Programme, Cecilia has worked at the Population Council, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CEDLAS), Argentina. Cecilia holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in Economics from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. Her Ph.D. dissertation analyses the relationship between the nutritional status of the mothers and its impact of the growth and development of their children.

About the Moderator:

Picture of James E. FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

Pedro Conceição has been Director of the Human Development Report Office and lead author of the Human Development Report since 1 January 2019. Prior to this, Pedro served as Director, Strategic Policy, at the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (from October 2014), and Chief Economist and Head of the Strategic Advisory Unit at the Regional Bureau for Africa (from 1 December 2009). Before that, he was Director of the Office of Development Studies (ODS) from March 2007 to November 2009, and Deputy Director of ODS, from October 2001 to February 2007. His work on financing for development and on global public goods was published by Oxford University Press in books he co-edited (The New Public Finance: Responding to Global Challenges, 2006; Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, 2003). He has published on inequality, the economics of innovation and technological change, and development in, amongst other journals, the African Development Review, Review of Development Economics, Eastern Economic Journal, Ecological Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Food Policy, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. He co-edited several books including: Innovation, Competence Building, and Social Cohesion in Europe- Towards a Learning Society (Edward Elgar, 2002) and Knowledge for Inclusive Development (Quorum Books, 2001). Prior to coming to UNDP, he was an Assistant Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, teaching and researching on science, technology and innovation policy. He has degrees in Physics from Instituto Superior Técnico and in Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon and a Ph. D. in Public Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with a Fulbright scholarship.

About the Discussants:

Fanni KovesdiFanni Kovesdi is a Research Analystat the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), where she is supporting research focused on the global MPI, moderate poverty and wellbeing, and technical work with national governments. Prior to joining OPHI, she has worked on research projects at the University of Oxford, the Centre for Social Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the regional office of Terre des Hommes in Central and South East Europe. Previously, she worked on the “Changes over Time” project which harmonized global MPI data across 80 countries to analyze trends in poverty. She has also supported previous releases of the global MPI through data work and report writing along with leading the ethnicity disaggregation of the measure in 2019. Kovesdi holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Sociology from the University of Bristol, and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Her primary research interests are in multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, wellbeing, and ethnicity and migration, particularly in the European context.

Mauricio ApablazaMauricio Apablaza is the Research Director at the School of Government at Universidad del Desarrollo. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). Previously, he worked as Research Officer and Outreach Coordinator at OPHI, at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and a Master in Public Policies from the University del Desarrollo (Chile). He has been regional director for civil society organizations and consultant to international businesses and agencies (MEDSTAT/OECD, UNICEF, UNDP, SADC, WORLD BANK). He has led training programs for OPHI in South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordan, Egypt, Hungary, Brasil, Chile, the Netherlands, Barbados, US, Vietnam, Nicaragua and Thailand, among others. His areas of research include institutions, poverty dynamics, international migration and commerce.

About the Event Series

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI 2020 offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Produced in partnership with the UNDP HDRO, the global MPI 2020 compares acute multidimensional poverty for 107 countries in developing regions and provides a detailed image of who is poor and how they are poor. It offers both a global headline and a fine-grained analysis covering 1,279 sub-national regions, and important disaggregation such as children, and people living in urban or rural areas, together with the indicator deprivations of each group. Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as sensitivity analyses, overlapping deprivations, changes over time (poverty trends), and inequality using the global data. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 10 a.m. EST, with the final seminar on March 8th, 2021. They will be hosted by IIEP Co-Director Professor James Foster and are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.

Schooling in India’s New Education Policy and Impact of COVID on Learning Outcomes

Wednesday February 10th, 2021
9:30 AM-11:00AM EST
via WebEx

We are pleased to share with you the sixth webinar in the “Envisioning India” series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy. This is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Envisioning India” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The sixth event, “Schooling in India’s New Education Policy and Impact of COVID on Learning Outcomes” featured Karthik Muralidharan and Rukmini Banerji. The discussion was moderated by Professor James Foster, with an introduction by Dr. Ajay Chhibber.”

Improving the quality of education is a critical investment for enabling “inclusive growth” in India. It matters both for growth at the aggregate level, and for enabling citizens to broadly participate in this growth process at the individual level.  India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is the first major overhaul of education policy in nearly 35 years.  Karthik discussed the main learnings from two decades of research on school education in India and present key principles for the way ahead. 

Rukmini provided her perspective on these issues based on her work on learning outcomes at Pratham since 2005 and will also present findings from the 2020 Annual Survey of Education Results (ASER) the first ever phone based ASER survey. Conducted in September 2020, the sixth month of national school closures, the survey explores provision of and access to distance education mechanisms, materials and activities for children in rural India, and the ways in which children and families are engaging with these remote learning alternatives from their homes.

About the Speakers:

rukmini banerjiDr. Rukmini Banerji is the CEO of Pratham Education Foundation. Trained as an economist, Dr. Banerji completed her B.A. at St. Stephen’s College and attended the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Banerji worked as a programme officer at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago for several years before returning to India in 1996 to join Pratham as part of the leadership team. There, she led the organisation’s research and assessment efforts, which have included the internationally acknowledged Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) since 2005, and served as director of the ASER Centre in New Delhi for 10 years.

In 2008, she was the inaugural recipient of the Maulana Abul Kalam Shiksha Puraskar Award conferred by the Government of Bihar, India. Over the years, she has represented Pratham and ASER Centre in various national and international forums and is a member of committees both in India and abroad. She writes frequently on education in India and enjoys creating books and stories for children.

Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is a Research Associate of the NBER, and on the Board of Directors of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT where he is co-chair of the education research program. His research spans development, public, and labor economics with a focus on improving the quality of public expenditure – especially in the social sector.

Born and raised in India, Prof. Muralidharan earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University (summa cum laude), an M.Phil. in economics from Cambridge University (ranked first), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

 

About the Moderator: 

Picture of James E. Foster James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

 

Multidimensional Poverty Indices and Children. Four Measurement Strategies

Monday February 8th, 2021

10:00 AM-11:30AM EST

View Jakob Dirksen and Sabina Alkire’s slides here (PDF)

In order to break intergenerational cycles of poverty and sustainably alleviate deprivations, explicit focus on, and prioritisation of, disadvantaged children is imperative. This all the more so given that children are evidently both among the most vulnerable and oftentimes among the poorest members of societies around the world. In order to effectively focus policy efforts on the alleviation of children’s deprivations and to achieve sustainable poverty eradication, multidimensional measures that can accurately capture the many deprivations experienced by children are thus key. Recognising that child poverty is characterised by age-specific deprivations different from deprivations adults or children of other age groups experience, a rich and growing literature on child multidimensional poverty measurement has emerged. However, experience has shown that, for pro-poor(est) policy-making, such efforts have often resulted in disjoint measurement exercises producing separate statistics of child versus all-population multidimensional poverty. Such disjoint measures have been difficult to communicate and interpret alongside one another – causing confusion that can be disadvantageous in particular for those whose already disadvantaged circumstances they are meant to capture and help improve. Responding to this dilemma, in this presentation we offer four synergetic measurement strategies. These can be used to achieve clear, policy-prescriptive and actionable population-level statistics of multidimensional poverty that focus attention explicitly and directly on children’s deprivations, guiding the prioritisation of those least well-off and at risk of being left behind

 

About the Presenter:

pic of Jakob DirksenJakob Dirksen is part of OPHI’s Research and Outreach teams. He is also a Lecturer at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany. He has held research positions at the Blavatnik School of Government and Mansfield College at the University of Oxford, and has worked in diplomacy for the German Foreign Office. Jakob studied Liberal Arts and Sciences, Social Sciences, and Philosophy in Germany and Spain. His research interests are the theory and measurement of well-being, poverty and inequalities; sustainable development; and the capability approach.

 

About the Discussants:

photo of ana vazAna Vaz is the Director of Research and Technical Validation at SOPHIA Oxford, where she is developing tools for companies to measure multidimensional poverty among their employees and exploring how multidimensional poverty data might support social investment. Before joining SOPHIA Oxford, Ana was a Senior Research Officer at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford. Ana’s work at OPHI focused on the measurement of multidimensional poverty and women’s empowerment. She holds a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and she was previously on the faculty at the Catholic University of Portugal and a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

About the Moderator:

Picture of James E. FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

These seminars are organized jointly with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office. They will he hosted by IIEP Co-Director James Foster.

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Moderate internationally comparable MPI

Monday February 1st, 2021

10:00 AM-11:30AM EST

Many of the current poverty measures used to track progress towards the Agenda 2030 fall short of its ambition to “end poverty in all its forms, everywhere”. This talk introduces a new measure of “moderate multidimensional poverty” that complements the current measures of acute poverty, in line with the ambitions outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The new trial index, here called Moderate MPI (MMPI), builds on the basic capabilities included in the global Multidimensional Poverty Index but adjusts the indicators to reflect a meaningful change in the level of ambition anchored in the SDGs. MMPI is intended to provide a complementary measure of poverty globally, but will be most meaningful for middle-income countries and regions where acute poverty is already low and possibly no longer reflects a valid level of ambition for national development.

The main value-added of the new trial MMPI is that it: i) is globally comparable across countries at all income levels, ii) aligns the indicators with the higher standards for development as defined in the Agenda 2030, and iii) allows us to study some aspects of intrahousehold deprivation. The trial MMPI is illustrated empirically using nationally representative household surveys from Thailand, Iraq, Tanzania, Serbia, Guatemala, and Bangladesh. While data constrains remain, the results demonstrate that the MMPI is feasible, has desirable properties as a global poverty index, and allows to unearth thus far hidden aspects in poverty measurement, such as intrahousehold deprivations in education. The talk concluded by discussing the steps needed towards a wider policy relevant use of the index that would support the global development community to find sustainable pathways out of poverty

About the Presenter:

Elina Scheja SidaElina Scheja is currently working as a Lead Economist at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), where her tasks include economic analysis, multidimensional poverty analytics, and advisory support. Her professional interest focus on evidence of what works for poverty reduction, how poverty can be measured in multiple dimensions, and how to promote sustainable and inclusive economic development that benefit people living in poverty. Prior to her current position, Ms Scheja was based in Rwanda managing Sida’s project portfolio for productive employment, analysing economic development, and engaging in dialogue with partners for sustainable poverty reduction. Ms Scheja has long experience in development cooperation in different roles and organisations, such as the World Bank where she worked with inclusive growth, development effectiveness, and migration. Ms Scheja holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Sussex, Masters in Economics from Helsinki School of Economics, and Masters in Development Studies from Helsinki University, and has research experience from several universities and research institutions

 

About the Discussant:

Iván González de AlbaIván González de Alba is a Country Economist at UNDP’s Country Office in Cambodia. Until August 2020, he was the Regional Policy Advisor in Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development at UNDP’s Regional Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean. Economist and holds a Masters in Public Policy from ITAM (Mexico) as well as a Masters in Economics and a DPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, England. Former OPHI collaborator, also worked for the Mexican government holding different positions at the ministries of tourism, social development and urban development.  Social protection in Africa and the regional study on environmental variables into MPIs are among his most recent publications.

Picture of Khalid

Khalid Abu-Ismail is a Senior Economist at UN-ESCWA, ERF Policy Affiliate and formerly UNDP Policy Adviser and Faculty Member of the Economics Department of the Lebanese American University.

Over 50 research papers and UN publications with a focus on poverty, inequality and human development in Arab countries, including: “Arab Vision 2030 Report” (ESCWA, 2015), “Arab Middle Class” (ESCWA, 2014), “Rethinking Economic Growth” (ILO and UNDP, 2012), “Arab Multi-Dimensional Poverty Report” (LAS, OPHI, UNICEF and ESCWA, 2017), “Rethinking Inequality in Arab Countries” (ESCWA and ERF, 2019) and lead author of the forthcoming ESCWA report on “Rethinking Human Development”. He has a D. Phil. in Development Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York.

 

About the Moderator:

Picture of James E. FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

 

These seminars are organized jointly with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office. They will be hosted by IIEP Co-Director James Foster.

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Changes over Time in the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index and Other Measures: Towards National Poverty Reports

Monday January 25th, 2021

10:00 AM-11:30AM EST

Paper Description:

This paper provides a highly visual, intuitive yet systematic assessment of trends in the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) over time across 80 countries and five billion people in developing regions. The analysis draws on data from 2000-2019, to document how the MPI, incidence and intensity of poverty has changed in these countries, and what indicators drove that change. Such a systematic review is an essential step towards clarifying the Sustainable Development Goal’s (SDGs) Target 1.2 to halve the proportion of people who are poor in many dimensions, and furthers the call for consistent, high quality, timely, and policy-relevant data on the interlinked deprivations that people living in multidimensional poverty endure.

About the Presenter:

Sabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). She is the Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, welfare economics, the capability approach, the measurement of freedoms and human development. From 2015–16, Sabina was Oliver T Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at George Washington University. Previously, she worked at the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, the Human Security Commission, and the World Bank’s Poverty and Culture Learning and Research Initiative. She holds a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.

About the Discussants:

pic of Jaya Krishnakumar Jaya Krishnakumar is a full professor of Econometrics at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India. Her research interests include panel data econometrics, multivariate models with latent variables and quantitative methods for multi-dimensional well-being analysis. She has publications in leading international econometrics/economics journals for example in Econometric Theory, Journal of Econometrics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Public Economics, European Economic Review, Health Economics, and World Development. She has also edited and contributed chapters in books in Econometrics and on the Capability Approach. She is a member of the Advisory Panel for the Human Development Reports of the UNDP, and a Fellow of the Human Development and Capabilities Association. She has also been a member of the academic experts panel for World Bank’s Women, Business and The Law Index 2019, as well as an Advisor for the SDG Action Manager launched by B-Lab along with the UN Global Compact in early 2020.

pic of José ManuelJosé Manuel is a Research Associate at OPHI, and co-authored Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis published by the Oxford University Press. He has over 20 years of research and policy experience in international development, human development, poverty and inequality analysis, horizon scanning and strategic foresight, while working for civil society organizations, governments, and academia.

He has held various research and advisory roles for international agencies (including the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, ECLAC, Asian Development Bank), international NGOs (Save the Children, Care, Oxfam and World Vision) and national governments (Colombia, Venezuela, Egypt, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Bhutan and Malaysia).

He has been a lecturer and taught various undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the University of Oxford, University of Sussex and University College of London.

About the Moderator: 

Picture of James E. Foster James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

Link to the Presentation

Multidimensional Poverty in the U.S.

Friday, December 11th, 2020
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST
WebEx

This event was the tenth webinar of the “Facing Inequality” series, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy. This virtual series focuses on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe – especially those revealed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, within the academy and without, to present work and discuss ideas that can facilitate new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. This is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invite you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Facing Inequality” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Faculty Affiliate Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History. The series is co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series, co-organized by Prof. Jackson from the Department of History and Prof. Bryan Stuart from the Department of Economics.

There is no doubt that poverty and wellbeing are multidimensional concepts that go well beyond monetary values. The UN, the World Bank, and dozens of countries around the world have developed their own multidimensional measures of poverty and deprivation to reflect this reality, guide policy, and monitor progress. Could this transformative approach be relevant for the US, whose official monetary poverty measure was developed over 50 years ago? This webinar brought key researchers together to answer this question with the help of the latest research on multidimensional poverty in the US and Europe.

In this event Brian Glassman began with a discussion of his new paper, “The Census Multidimensional Deprivation Index: Revised and Updated,” which analyzes the Multidimensional Deprivation Index, released by the Census Bureau. Shatakshee Dhongde discussed her new paper, “Decade-Long View of Multidimensional Poverty in the United States,” which provides a comprehensive analysis of trends in multidimensional poverty in the United States. Lastly, Sabina Alkire presented her new paper “Chronic Multidimensional Poverty in Europe,” which develops contrasting measures for advanced economies, and applies them to the case of Europe.

This event was co-sponsored by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU.

About the Speakers: 

Picture of Brian GlassmanBrian Glassman is an Economist in the Poverty Statistics Branch of the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division at the U.S. Census Bureau. Dr. Glassman has a Ph.D. in Economics from Temple University and a Masters in Public Policy from the College of William and Mary, and his areas of interest include urban economics, labor economics, and poverty and income inequality.

 

 

Picture of Shatakshee DhongdeShatakshee Dhongde is an Associate Professor of Economics and a Provost Teaching-Learning Fellow at Georgia Tech. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. She is also a research affiliate with the Institute of Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research has focused on analyzing economic growth, inequality, poverty and multidimensional deprivation. She was awarded the Nancy and Richard Ruggles Prize for young researchers by the International Association of Review of Income and Wealth (IARIW). Her work has been published in several leading economics journals. Her research on measuring deprivation in the U.S. has been highlighted in national media, including NPR. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards at Georgia Tech.

Picture of Sabina AlkireSabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). She is the Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, welfare economics, the capability approach, the measurement of freedoms and human development. From 2015–16, Sabina was Oliver T Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at George Washington University. Previously, she worked at the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, the Human Security Commission, and the World Bank’s Poverty and Culture Learning and Research Initiative. She holds a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.

About the Discussants: 

Picture of James E. FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

 
Picture of Sophie MitraSophie Mitra is a professor of economics and founding director of the Research Consortium on Disability at Fordham University in New York City. She has studied the economic impact of disability and mental illness, the effects of social protection programs, multidimensional poverty, the association between disability and poverty, and the definition of disability. Sophie Mitra has held visiting positions at Columbia University and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). She received her doctorate in economics from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
 
 
About the Moderator: 
Picture of Marianne BitlerMarianne Bitler has a BS in Mathematics from Penn State and a PhD in economics from MIT. She is a professor in the UC Davis Department of Economic and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Bitler’s research focuses on the effects of government safety net programs on disadvantaged groups, economic demography, health economics, public economics, and the economics of education, with a particular focus on food assistance programs. Before coming to UC Davis, she was a professor of economics at UC Irvine. She recently served as the chair of a National Academy of Sciences CNSTAT Panel on Improving Consumer Data for Food and Nutrition Policy Research for the Economic Research Service, USDA and she is a co-editor of the American Journal of Health Economics
 
About our Partners – OPHI
 
The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) is an economic research and policy centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. Established in 2007, the centre is led by Sabina Alkire. OPHI aims to build and advance a more systematic methodological and economic framework for reducing multidimensional poverty, grounded in people’s experiences and values. OPHI works towards this through theoretical and applied research on multidimensional poverty, teaching and training activities, and supporting countries designing official national poverty statistics. OPHI’s work is grounded in Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and seeks to advance this approach by creating rigorous yet practical tools that inform policies to reduce poverty.

Each year, with the United Nations Development Programme, OPHI publishes the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty covering over 100 developing countries. As the secretariat of a South-South multidimensional poverty peer network of policy actors and statisticians, OPHI organises side-events at the UN General Assembly and Statistics Commission, and publishes a magazineDimensions featuring policy applications. OPHI also publishes a Working Paper series, an informal Research in Progress series, a Policy and Research Briefings series, a global MPI Methodological Notes series. OPHI and MPPN websites also feature national MPI reports, some special publications such as poverty reports co-authored by OPHI, and a newsletter.

IMF October 2020 World Economic Outlook

October 28, 2020

11:00 am – 12:30 pm

via WebEx

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hosted a virtual discussion of the IMF’s October 2020 World Economic Outlook.

Agenda

11:00 – 11:05 a.m.     Welcoming Remarks:
James Foster and Jay Shambaugh, IIEP Co-Directors, George Washington University

11:05 – 11:35  a.m.     Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies 
Presenter:   Malhar Nabar, International Monetary Fund
Discussant: Claudia Sahm, SAHM Consulting

11:35 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.     Chapter 2: The Great Lockdown: Dissecting the Economic Effects 
Presenter:   Francesca Caselli, International Monetary Fund
Discussant: Tara Sinclair, George Washington University

12:00 – 12:25 p.m.     Chapter 3: Mitigating Climate Change: Growth-and-Distribution-Friendly Strategies
Presenters: Florence Jaumotte , International Monetary Fund 
Discussant: Ken Gillingham, Yale University

12:25 – 12:30 p.m.                 General Q&A and Concluding Remarks

 

Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies

The months after the release of the June 2020 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update have offered a glimpse of how difficult rekindling economic activity will be while the pandemic surges. During May and June, as many economies tentatively reopened from the Great Lockdown, the global economy started to climb from the depths to which it had plunged in April. But with the pandemic spreading and accelerating in places, many countries slowed reopening, and some are reinstating partial lockdowns. While the swift recovery in China has surprised on the upside, the global economy’s long ascent back to pre-pandemic levels of activity remains prone to setbacks.

Chapter 2: The Great Lockdown: Dissecting the Economic Effects

To contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and protect susceptible populations, most countries imposed stringent lockdown measures in the first half of 2020. Meanwhile, economic activity contracted dramatically on a global scale. This chapter aims to dissect the nature of the economic crisis in the first seven months of the pandemic. It finds that the adoption of lockdowns was an important factor in the recession, but voluntary social distancing in response to rising infections also contributed very substantially to the economic contraction. Therefore, although easing lockdowns can lead to a partial recovery, economic activity is likely to remain subdued until health risks abate.

Chapter 3: Mitigating Climate Change: Growth-and-Distributional-Friendly Strategies

Without further action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on course to reach temperatures not seen in millions of years, with potentially catastrophic implications. The analysis in this chapter suggests that an initial green investment push combined with steadily rising carbon prices would deliver the needed emission reductions at reasonable transitional global output effects, putting the global economy on a stronger and more sustainable footing over the medium term.

Immunocapital: Disease, Power, and Inequality in the Antebellum Cotton Kingdom

Monday, October 26, 2020
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
WebEx

We were pleased to invite you to a new webinar series, “Facing Inequality”, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy. This virtual series focused on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe. The series brought attention to aspects of inequality being made increasingly relevant by the current COVID-19 pandemic and associated crises. The series was organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Faculty Affiliate Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History. The series was co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series, co-organized by Prof. Jackson from the Department of History and Prof. Bryan Stuart from the Department of Economics.

This was the ninth event in the facing inequality series. Our distinguished guest was Dr. Kathryn Olivarius. Based on Olivarius’s current book project, this talk discussed the impact of yellow fever in New Orleans in the antebellum period and how disease and immunity became agents of inequality. Yellow fever killed upwards of eight percent of antebellum New Orleans’ population each summer. It was terrifying: there was do cure, no inoculation, no conclusive evidence of disease transmission, and no satisfactory proof for why it killed some while leaving others symptomatic. It was, moreover, a sudden and horrible way to die, with victims famously vomiting up thick black vomit at the end of their illness. About half of all nineteenth-century victims died; the other half became “acclimated” or immune for life. The Cotton Kingdom was a slave society where whites dominated free people of color and enslaved people through legally sanctioned violence. But another invisible hierarchy came to co-mingle with the racial order; white “acclimated citizens” stood atop the social pyramid, followed by white “unacclimated strangers,” followed by everyone else. Here, the acclimated wielded their immunity at every turn, making epidemiological discrimination a major form of bias in this already unequal society.

Agenda:

12:30 p.m. – Welcome Remarks by IIEP Director James Foster and Facing Inequality co-organizer Prof. Trevor Jackson
12:35 p.m. – Introductory Remarks and Setting the Stage by Dayna Matthew, GW Law School Dean
12:50 p.m. – “Immunocapital: Disease, Power, and Inequality in the Antebellum Cotton Kingdom” by Kathryn Olivarius, Stanford University
1:30 p.m. – Discussant Remarks by Martin Saavedra, Oberlin College
1:40 p.m. – Response by Kathryn Olivarius
1:45 p.m. – Audience Q&A moderated by IIEP Director James Foster
2:00 p.m. – Event Conclusion

About the Speakers:

Picture of Kathryn Olivarius, Featured speakerKathryn Olivarius is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University, where she has taught since 2017. Her research and teaching focus on slavery’s rise and fall in the American South and the wider Atlantic World, disease in the nineteenth century, the history of race and ethnicity, and the social upheaval of the Age of Revolutions. Last year, she was awarded Stanford’s Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize for undergraduate teaching. Before moving to California, she was a Past and Present postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Historical Research in London. Her book entitled Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom will be published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2021. Her article “Immunity, Power, and Belonging in Antebellum New Orleans,” was published by the American Historical Review last year.

About the Discussant:

Picture of Martin SaavedraMartin Saavedra is an Associate Professor of Economics at Oberlin College and earned his PhD in Economics from the    University of Pittsburgh in 2014. He primarily works in the fields of economic history, health economics, and labor economics, and his research focuses on the economics of infectious disease, infant health, and the WW2 internment of Japanese Americans. His work has been published in the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, the Journal of Economic Literature, among others.

 

About GW Law School Dean Danya Bowen Matthew:

Picture of Dayna Matthew, Dean of GW Law SchoolDayna Bowen Matthew, JD, PhD, is the Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. Dean Matthew is a leader in public health and civil rights law who focuses on racial disparities in health care. She joined the UVA Law faculty in 2017 and is the author of the book Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care. At UVA, she served as Co-Founder and Inaugural Director of The Equity Center, a transdisciplinary research center that seeks to build better relationships between UVA and the Charlottesville community through community-engaged scholarship that tangibly redresses racial and socioeconomic inequality.

Dean Matthew previously served on the University of Colorado law faculty as a Professor, Vice Dean, and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. She was a member of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Dean Matthew held a joint appointment at the Colorado School of Public Health. In 2013, she co-founded the Colorado Health Equity Project, a medical-legal partnership incubator aimed at removing barriers to good health for low-income clients by providing legal representation, research, and policy advocacy. In 2015, she served as the Senior Adviser to the Director of the Office of Civil Rights for the US Environmental Protection Agency, where she expedited cases on behalf of historically vulnerable communities besieged by pollution. She then became a member of the health policy team for US Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and worked on public health issues. During 2015-16, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in Residence in Washington, DC, and pivoted her work toward population-level clients.

India’s COVID-19 Challenge: Outcomes and Options

Thursday, October 15, 2020
10:30 am – 12:00 pm EDT
WebEx

This was the second webinar in the “Envisioning India” series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy. It is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Envisioning India” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The second event, “India’s COVID-19 Challenge: Outcomes and Options” featured Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, and Bina Agarwal, Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the University of Manchester. The discussion was moderated by Professor James Foster, with an introduction by Dr. Ajay Chhibber.

India has been hit hard by the Coronavirus. Today it has amongst the highest number of cases world-wide and daily rising death rates. One of the world’s strictest lockdowns in March, with no warning, flattened the economy instead of flattening the Covid-19 curve. In Q1 FY 2020-21 (April to June), India’s GDP fell by almost 24%, while the FY 2020-21GDP growth is projected to be between -5% and -10%, amongst the largest drop globally. The economy was already ailing prior to Covid, with growth falling for 7 previous quarters. COVID will set it back further, perhaps by at least 5 years and push millions out of work and into poverty. India’s ambitious goal of becoming a $5 Trillion economy by 2025 seems a distant dream now.

The lockdown also forced millions of urban migrants to return to their rural homes, under great hardship, carrying with them the virus and the despair of joblessness. India’s woefully inadequate public health system is now overwhelmed. Central and State finances are in deep trouble and the GST (as a sign of Cooperative Federalism) is beset with intense political friction. The already struggling financial system is likely to sink even deeper into the mire. The Rs 20 Trillion (10% of GDP) package announced by the government with much fanfare under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India scheme), is too small – especially its fiscal component -to repair the economic damage or revive livelihoods. The package includes a series of reforms in agricultural markets and labor markets as well as a greater push for “ Make in India”. But will these reforms help India at this stage?

India is between a rock and a hard place. Did it have to get so bad? Is there any good news? A silver lining anywhere? Is there scope for some transformative change? Or do we, as with the virus, have to brace ourselves to “live with” this economic downturn for a long stretch ahead?

Our distinguished panelists discussed these challenges and possible options and solutions.

About the Panelists:

Picture of Raghuram Rajan, panelist

Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. He was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between 2013 and 2016, and also served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements between 2015 and 2016. Dr. Rajan was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006.

Dr. Rajan’s research interests are in banking, corporate finance, and economic development, especially the role finance plays in it. He co-authored Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists with Luigi Zingales in 2003. He then wrote Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, for which he was awarded the Financial Times-Goldman Sachs prize for best business book in 2010. His most recent book, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State hold the Community Behind was published in 2019.

Dr. Rajan was the President of the American Finance Association in 2011 and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Group of Thirty. In 2003, the American Finance Association awarded Dr. Rajan the inaugural Fischer Black Prize for the best finance researcher under the age of 40. The other awards he has received include the Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics in 2013, Euromoney magazine’s Central Banker of the Year Award 2014 and The Banker magazine’s Global Central Banker of the Year award in 2016.

Picture of Bina Agarwal, Panelist Bina Agarwal is Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK, and former Professor and Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. She has been President,  International Society for Ecological Economics; Vice-President, International Economic Association; President,                    International Society for Feminist Economics; and held distinguished positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Harvard,    Princeton, Michigan, Minnesota, and the New York University School of Law. Dr. Agarwal’s publications include the multiple award-winning book, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Gender and Green Governance (OUP, 2010) and Gender Challenges (OUP, 2016), a three volume compendium of her selected papers on Agriculture, Property, and the Environment. Her pioneering work on gender inequality in property and land and on environmental governance, has had global impact. Her many awards include a Padma Shri, 2008; book prizes; the Leontief Prize 2010; Louis Malassis Scientific Prize 2017; and the International Balzan Prize, 2017.

 

About the Organizers:

Picture of James E. Foster James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the  FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.

Professor Foster’s work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank.

Ajay Chhibber is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute of International Economic Policy, George Washington University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He was earlier Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, Government of India and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), India. He held senior positions at the UN as Assistant Secretary General and Assistant Administrator, UNDP and managed their program for Asia and the Pacific. He also served in senior positions at the World Bank. He has a PhD from Stanford University, a Masters from the Delhi School of Economics. He taught at Georgetown University and at the University of Delhi.

No Going Back: Post Corona Reconstruction Program

Tuesday, September 29, 2020
11 am EDT
WebEx

We are pleased to invite you to a conversation with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh who created a model for combating poverty through microlending. He is also the founder of the Yunus Centre, a think tank for issues related to social business. He is the author of three books, including Banker to the Poor. The event will be moderated by Dr. James Foster, Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy and Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. This event is jointly sponsored by IIEP, the Elliott School of International Affairs, the LEAP Initiative, and the George Washington University.

About the Speaker:
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the father of both social business and microcredit, the founder of Grameen Bank, and of more than 50 other companies in Bangladesh. For his constant innovation and enterprise, Fortune magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. In 2006, Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to “create economic and social development from below.”

Dr. Yunus is the recipient of 61 honorary degrees from universities across 24 countries. He has received 136 awards from 33 countries including state honours from 10 countries. He is one of only seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the United State Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. He has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Newsweek and Forbes magazine. In 2016 GWU awarded him the President’s Medal in recognition of his service.

 

About the Moderator:

Picture of James FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.

Professor Foster’s work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank.

Fiscal Dominance: A Theory of Everything in India

Wednesday, September 9, 2020
10:00 am – 11:30 am EDT
WebEx

Read Prof. Acharya’s responses to our discussants here.

This was the first webinar in the “Envisioning India” series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy. It is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

The “Envisioning India” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The first talk in the Envisioning India Series was “Fiscal Dominance: A Theory of Everything in India” and featured Viral V. Acharya of NYU-Stern.

He discussed the following: Financial stability is perhaps the most important prerequisite for stable growth. It is surprisingly also the most compromised one. Encouraging cheap credit and rapid balance-sheet growth in the financial sector is a temptation that many governments find hard to resist to register well on the short-run growth scorecard. Post 1991 reforms, India undertook an upward and onward march in economic progress for close to two decades. Since then, lack of financial stability has emerged as its Achilles’ heel. The reasons for this are many but a first and foremost contributor has been the increasing dominance of banking and financial sector regulation by the unyielding deficit situation of the consolidated government balance-sheet. Reining in this fiscal dominance requires not just a strengthening of the institutional framework of financial sector regulation but also the right balance between the role played by the government, the central bank, the markets, and the private sector in the economy.

 

About the Speaker:

Viral V. Acharya is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern) and an Academic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Philadelphia. Viral was a Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during 23rd January 2017 to 23rd July 2019 in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, Financial Stability, and Research. His speeches while at the RBI will release in the end of July 2020 in the form of a book titled “Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India” (SAGE Publications India), with a new introductory chapter “Fiscal Dominance: A Theory of Everything in India”. Viral completed Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai in 1995 and Ph.D. in Finance from NYU-Stern in 2001. Prior to joining Stern, he was at London Business School (2001-2008), the Academic Director of the Coller Institute of Private Equity at LBS (2007-09) and a Senior Houblon-Normal Research Fellow at the Bank of England (Summer 2008). Viral’s primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation and its genesis in government-induced distortions, an inquiry that cuts across several other strands of research – credit risk and liquidity risk, their interactions and agency-theoretic foundations, as well as their general equilibrium consequences. He has published articles in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Finance, Journal of Business, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Rand Journal of Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and Financial Analysts Journal. He is currently associate editor of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies (RCFS, 2011-) and Review of Finance (2006-), and was an editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation (2009-12) and associate editor of the Journal of Finance (2011-14).

 

Discussants:

Liaquat Ahamed is the author of the critically acclaimed best-seller, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, about central bankers during the Great Depression of 1929-1932. The book won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History, the 2010 Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Gold Medal, and the 2009 Financial Times-Goldman Sachs Best Business Book of the Year Award. Ahamed was a professional investment manager for twenty-five years. He has worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and the New York-based partnership of Fischer Francis Trees and Watts, where he served as chief executive. He is currently a director of the Putnam Funds. He is on the board of trustees of the Journal of Philosophy, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference and a former trustee of the Brookings Institution and the New America Foundation. He has degrees in economics from Harvard and Cambridge.

Rakesh Mohan is one of India’s senior-most economic policymakers and an expert on central banking, monetary policy, infrastructure and urban affairs. Most recently he was executive director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., representing India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan, and chairman, National Transport Development Policy Committee, Government of India, in the rank of a Minister of State. He is also a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. As deputy governor he was in charge of monetary policy, financial markets, economic research and statistics. In addition to serving in various posts for the Indian government, including representing India in a variety of international forums such as Basel and G20, Mohan has worked for the World Bank and headed prestigious research institutes. He is also Senior Advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute and Distinguished Fellow of Brookings India. Mohan has written extensively on urban economics, urban development, Indian economic policy reforms, monetary policy and central banking.

A Discussion of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2020

Wednesday, July 29, 2020
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
WebEx

Please join the Institute for International Economic Policy for a virtual discussion of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative’s Global MPI 2020: – Charting pathways out of multidimensional poverty: Achieving the SDGs

 

Participants:

James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and holds a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo (Mexico). Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in México. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu. Foster regularly teaches introductory and doctoral courses on international development and each spring joins with Professor Basu in presenting an undergraduate course on Game Theory and Strategic Thinking, to which staff and Board members of the World Bank are also invited. Professor Foster is also Research Fellow at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Department of International Development, Oxford University, and a member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Working Group, Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, University of Chicago. He also previously served as an Advisory Board Member on the World Bank’s Commission on Global Poverty.

 

Sabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. Dr Alkire works on a new approach to measuring poverty and well-being that goes beyond the traditional focus on income and growth. This multidimensional approach to measurement includes social goals, such as health, education, nutrition, standard of living and other valuable aspects of life. She devised a new method for measuring multidimensional poverty with her colleague James Foster (OPHI Research Associate and Professor of Economics at George Washington University) that has advantages over other poverty measures and has been adopted by the Mexican Government, the Bhutanese Government in their ‘Gross National Happiness Index’ and the United Nations Development Programme. Dr Alkire has been called upon to provide input and advice to several initiatives seeking to take a broader approach to well-being rather than just economic growth, for example, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (instigated by President Sarkozy); the United Nations Human Development Programme Human Development Report Office; the European Commission; and the UK’s Department for International Development.

 

Pedro Conceição has been Director of the Human Development Report Office and lead author of the Human Development Report since 1 January 2019. Prior to this, Pedro served as Director, Strategic Policy, at the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (from October 2014), and Chief Economist and Head of the Strategic Advisory Unit at the Regional Bureau for Africa (from 1 December 2009). Before that, he was Director of the Office of Development Studies (ODS) from March 2007 to November 2009, and Deputy Director of ODS, from October 2001 to February 2007. His work on financing for development and on global public goods was published by Oxford University Press in books he co-edited (The New Public Finance: Responding to Global Challenges, 2006; Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, 2003). He has published on inequality, the economics of innovation and technological change, and development in, amongst other journals, the African Development Review, Review of Development Economics, Eastern Economic Journal, Ecological Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Food Policy, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. He co-edited several books including: Innovation, Competence Building, and Social Cohesion in Europe- Towards a Learning Society (Edward Elgar, 2002) and Knowledge for Inclusive Development (Quorum Books, 2001). Prior to coming to UNDP, he was an Assistant Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, teaching and researching on science, technology and innovation policy. He has degrees in Physics from Instituto Superior Técnico and in Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon and a Ph. D. in Public Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with a Fulbright scholarship.

 

Ajay Chhibber is Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute of International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He is Chief Economic Advisor, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). He was earlier the first Director General ( Minister of State) , Independent Evaluation Office, Government of India and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), India – affiliated institute of the Ministry of Finance – where he completed a major study on India’s Public Sector Enterprises. He held senior positions at the UN as Assistant Secretary General and Assistant Administrator, UNDP and managed their program for Asia and the Pacific. At the World Bank he served as Country Director in Turkey and Vietnam and Division Chief for Indonesia and the Pacific and Lead Economist, West Africa Department. He was also Director of the 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State. He also worked in the World Bank’s Research Department, as Advisor to the Chief Economist of the World Bank and at the Public Economics Division. He has a Ph.D from Stanford University, a Masters from the Delhi School of Economics. He also has attended advanced management programs at the Harvard Business School, Harvard University and INSEAD, France. He taught at Georgetown University and at the University of Delhi. He has published widely including 5 books in development economics, and is a contributor (columnist) to several newspapers. He is now writing a book on “India: A Reset for the 21st Century” under contract with Harper-Collins.

 

Monica Pinilla-Roncancio is a Physiotherapist with a Master’s degree in Economics from Universidad del Rosario. She has also a Master’s degree in Health Economics, Policy and Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. She finished her PhD in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, UK. From 2016 to 2018 she was as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Universidad de los Andes and currently is an Assistant Professor at the same university. She is the Co-director of Metrics and Policy at OPHI and has been working in OPHI since 2014. She coordinates the work in Latin America, East Asia and some countries in Africa and Middle East. Her main research interest are disability, multidimensional poverty, inequality and health economics.

 

Frances StewartFrances Stewart was Director of ODID from 1993-2003 and Director of the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) at the department between 2003 and 2010. She has a DPhil from the University of Oxford and an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex. Among many publications, she is coauthor of UNICEF’s influential study, Adjustment with a Human Face (OUP 1987); War and Underdevelopment (OUP 2001); and leading author and editor of Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies (Palgrave, 2008). She has directed a number of major research programmes including several financed by the UK Government’s Department for International Development, and others by the Swedish Development Agency and the Carnegie Corporation. An Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, Frances has acted as consultant for early Human Development Reports; she has been President of the Human Development and Capability Association; President of the British and Irish Development Studies Association; Chair of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy and Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute. She received the Leontief prize in 2013 for advancing the frontiers of economic thought from Tufts University. She was given the UNDP’s Mahbub ul Haq award for her lifetime’s achievements in promoting human development in 2009; and named one of fifty outstanding technological leaders for 2003 by Scientific American (Policy Leader in Economic Development Strategies for promoting anti-poverty campaigns to help quell armed conflicts in developing countries).

Ricardo Nogales is a Research Officer at OPHI since May 2018. He holds a BSc. and a MSc. In Economics and a PhD in Econometrics, all from the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Before joining OPHI, he was a Professor of Economics at the School of Economics and Finance of the Universidad Privada Boliviana in Bolivia and a Research Assistant at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Switzerland. He carried on research activities in the field of development economics, poverty reduction and human development with the IDB, UNDP, ILO, World Bank, Oxfam and IDRC. He has been an external consultant for several public organizations in Bolivia, including the Program for Strategic Research, the Central Bank, the Institute for Agricultural Insurance and the Ministry of Economics and Public Finance.

 

Dean JolliffeDean Jolliffe is a Lead Economist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank and member of the LSMS-ISA team. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of household surveys and is currently managing ongoing LSMS-ISA work in Ethiopia. He has also worked in the South Asia region at the Bank on poverty assessments for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Previously, he was a Research Economist at the Economic Research Service of USDA, an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, an Assistant Professor at the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education in Prague, and a Post-doctoral Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. Dean holds appointments as a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, and as a Research Affiliate with the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.

IMF’s Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook (REO)

Thursday, July 23, 2020
11:00 am – 12:30 pm EDT
WebEx

Please join the Institute for International Economic Policy for a virtual discussion of the International Monetary Fund’s Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook

Schedule
11:00 – 11:05 a.m. Welcoming Remarks:

James Foster, George Washington University

Jennifer Cooke, IAFS Director, George Washington University

11:05 – 11:35  a.m. Chapter 1: Covid-19: An Unprecedented Threat to Development

Presenter: Andrew Tiffin John, Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund

Discussant: Louise Fox, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings, and on the Advisory Board of the G-7
Inclusive Growth Financing Forum, former USAID Chief Economist and World Bank official

11:40 – 12:05 p.m. Chapter 2: Adapting to Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa

Presenter: Seung Mo Choi, Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund

Discussant: Stephen C. Smith, Chair, Economics Department, and Professor of Economics and International Affairs, George Washington University

12:05 – 12:30 p.m. Chapter 3: Digitalization in Sub-Saharan Africa


Presenters: Preya Sharma, Special Assistant to the Director, African Department, International Monetary Fund

Discussant: Esther Chibesa, Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions for SSA, Citigroup; and Michael Mutiga,
Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance for SSA, Citigroup

12:30 p.m.  Concluding Remarks


Summary Chapter: A Cautious Reopening

The outlook for 2020 for sub-Saharan Africa is considerably worse than was anticipated in April and subject to much uncertainty. Economic activity this year is now projected to contract by some 3.2 percent, reflecting a weaker external environment and measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. Growth is projected to recover to 3.4 percent in 2021 subject to the continued gradual easing of restrictions that has started in recent weeks and, importantly, if the region avoids the same epidemic dynamics that have played out elsewhere. Africa’s authorities have acted swiftly to support the economy, but these efforts have been constrained by falling revenues and limited fiscal space. Regional policies should remain focused on safeguarding public health, supporting people and businesses hardest hit by the crisis, and facilitating the recovery. The region cannot tackle these challenges alone, and a coordinated effort by all development partners will be key.

 

Chapter 2: Adapting to Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is especially vulnerable to climate change, as it relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture and has limited resilience and coping mechanisms. On average, climate change could reduce GDP growth by at least 1 percentage point in the month a climate shock occurs. Improving access to finance and insurance, education, health, telecommunications, and physical infrastructure would be most effective in raising resilience. Ensuring food security and raising agricultural productivity in the face of intensifying weather shocks will require targeted social assistance, crop diversification, and improved irrigation. While these measures involve large public spending, they should be prioritized as they will be more cost-effective than frequent disaster relief. Limited fiscal space poses a challenge and means that development partners’ support will be critical.

 

Chapter 3: Digitalization in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly becoming digitally connected and closing gaps with the rest of the world. Digital solutions have taken on added importance as countries grapple with the unprecedented fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. While countries have leveraged digital solutions and policy responses, the connectivity gap between sub Saharan Africa and the rest of the world suggests that greater digital readiness could have allowed the region to do even more. Analysis conducted before the pandemic found that a one percentage point increase in internet penetration in the region can raise per capita growth by 0.1–0.4 percentage points. There does not appear to be an impact on overall employment, although the share of service sector jobs increases. Evidence suggests that digitalization can help reduce corruption, improve public sector accountability and efficiency, and support financial development. However, digitalization brings new risks (e.g., cybersecurity, business continuity) and challenges to macro-policy making (e.g., monetary policy transmission, changes to the tax base). As attention turns to policies for the recovery, the pandemic will likely serve to accelerate the digital transformation. Policies to enable and leverage greater connectivity include investing in complementary infrastructure and human capital; developing legislative and regulatory frameworks; and supervisory powers to ensure consumer protection and address risks.

Participants:

James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and holds a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo (Mexico). Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in México. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu. Foster regularly teaches introductory and doctoral courses on international development and each spring joins with Professor Basu in presenting an undergraduate course on Game Theory and Strategic Thinking, to which staff and Board members of the World Bank are also invited. Professor Foster is also Research Fellow at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Department of International Development, Oxford University, and a member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Working Group, Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, University of Chicago. He also previously served as an Advisory Board Member on the World Bank’s Commission on Global Poverty.

 

Jennifer CookeJennifer G. Cooke is director of the Institute for African Studies at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. The Institute serves as central for research, scholarly discussion, and debate on issues relevant to Africa. She is a professor of practice in international affairs, teaching courses on U.S. Policy Toward Africa and Transnational Security Threats in Africa. Cooke joined George Washington University in August 2018, after 18 years as director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she led research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. While at CSIS, Cooke directed projects on a wide range of African issues, including on violent extremist organizations in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, China’s growing role in Africa, democracy and elections in Nigeria, religion and state authority in Africa, “stress-testing” state stability in Africa, Africa’s changing energy landscape, and more. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and has provided briefing, commentary, and testimony to the media, US Congress, AFRICOM leadership and the U.S. military. She has traveled widely in Africa and has been an election observer in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria. As a teenager, she lived in Cote d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic. She holds an M.A. in African studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.

 

Andrew TiffinAndrew Tiffin is a senior economist at the IMF, working in the regional studies division of the Fund’s African Department. He is also keenly involved in the effort to incorporate artificial intelligence/machine-learning techniques into the standard analytical toolkit of the Fund. Previously, he has worked on Middle Eastern countries, with a particular interest in refugee issues in Jordan and Lebanon, as well as numerous countries in Europe–he was part of the Italy team during the debt crisis of 2012, and part of the Russia team for the global financial crisis of 2008. Raised in Sydney, Andrew is an Australian national. He received his post-graduate training at Princeton University, where he obtained both a Ph.D. in economics and an M.P.A. in international relations. In addition to his work with the Fund, Andrew has held positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia, and with the Australian Government.

 

Louise Fox Louise Fox is an experienced development economist who specializes in strategies for employment creation, opportunity expansion, economic empowerment, and poverty reduction. She has advised governments in the developed and developing world, international organizations, and philanthropic and non-profit organizations on problem diagnosis, strategies for results, and outcome measurement. She held full-time positions at USAID (as Chief Economist) and at the World Bank. She is currently affiliated with the African Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution and the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley. She was previously affiliated with the Overseas Development Institute, where she led a major research project. Louise has published in the areas of inclusive growth, structural transformation, youth employment, the political economy of poverty reduction, gender and women’s economic empowerment, employment, labor markets, and labor regulation, pension reform, reform of child welfare systems, social protection, effective public expenditures in the social sectors, and female-headed households and child welfare. Her most recent book was Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, published by the World Bank in 2014.

 

Seung Mo Choi is a Senior Economist working on regional surveillance in the IMF’s African Department. He has worked on banking crises, financial market policies, climate change, low-income country issues, and capacity development, including in the IMF’s European Department and in the Institute for Capacity Development. His research has been published in economics and finance journals such as International Economic Review. Prior to joining the IMF, he worked as an Assistant Professor at Washington State University and obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in economics from Seoul National University.

 

Stephen C. SmithStephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. In 2018 he was UNICEF Senior Fellow at the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, Florence, Italy. Smith received his Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University and has been a Fulbright Research Scholar, a Jean Monnet Research Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, a member of the Advisory Council of BRAC USA, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. He has twice served as Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU. Smith is the co-author with Michael Todaro of Economic Development (12th Edition, Pearson, 2014). He is also author of Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works (paperback edition Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and co-editor with Jennifer Brinkerhoff and Hildy Teegen of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He is also author or coauthor of about 45 professional journal articles and many other publications. Smith’s recent research has focused on extreme poverty and strategies and programs to address it; and on the economics of adaptation and resilience to climate change in low-income countries, emphasizing autonomous adaptation by households and communities and its effects, and adaptation financing.

 

Preya SharmaPreya Sharma is a senior economist in the African Department of the IMF where she is Special Assistant to the Director. Her research has focused on structural transformation, the future of work, and digitalization in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as emerging market crises and development. Before joining the IMF she was the Head of Emerging Markets at HM Treasury in the UK. She holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

 

Esther Chibesa Picture

Esther Chibesa has 20 years of diverse corporate banking experience, serving in various capacities for Citigroup in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. In her current role, Esther is driven by Africa’s promise, and seeks to realize the opportunities presented at the intersection of technology, regulatory evolution, and inclusive finance. She leads a team in the visioning and execution of a transaction services strategy that addresses the continent’s ongoing financial services transformation. She leads the execution and deployment of innovative treasury & trade finance solutions for multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across Sub-Saharan Africa. In her various roles within the organization, she has championed the development of several groundbreaking solutions such as fully integrated tax & fiscal collections systems, receivables digitization solutions, automated mobile money channels and settlement processes, and enhanced, digitized trade and supply chain solutions. She is a past recipient of the prestigious Top 40 Women under 40 (Business Daily Kenya), past member of the Junior Achievement Zambia Board, is an alum of University of Botswana (First Class Honors), and holds an MBA from Heriot Watt Business School, Edinburgh University.

 

 

Global Income Inequality: Current Developments and Their Political Implications

Tuesday, May 5, 2020
12:30-2:00pm
WebEx

Branko Milanovic
Visiting Presidential Professor and Stone Center Senior Scholar,
The Graduate Center, CUNY;
Centennial Professor, International Inequalities Institute, LSE

We are pleased to invite you to a new webinar series, “Facing Inequality”, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy. This virtual series will focus on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe. The series will bring attention to aspects of inequality being made increasingly relevant by the current COVID-19 pandemic and associated crises. The series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Faculty Affiliate Trevor Jackson, Assistant Professor of History. The series is co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series, co-organized by Prof. Jackson from the Department of History and Prof. Bryan Stuart from the Department of Economics. The inaugural event in the series will feature Branko Milanovic.

The goal of the series is to bring together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, both within the academy and without, to present their work and to discuss both their ideas and methods, with the intention of working towards new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. This is a platform for dialogue and debate, and will help cultivate a community of current and future researchers and practitioners. We invite you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

Branko Milanovic is a visiting presidential professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality. He is also Centennial Professor at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics (1987) from the University of Belgrade with a dissertation on income inequality in Yugoslavia. He served as lead economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years, leaving to write his book on global income inequality, Worlds Apart (2005). His most recent book Capitalism, Alone was published in September 2019. 

Milanovic’s main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, including in preindustrial societies. He has published articles in Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of Development Economics, and Journal of Political Philosophy, among others. His book The Haves and the Have-nots (2011) was selected by The Globalist as the 2011 Book of the Year. Global Inequality (2016) was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of 2016 and the Hans Matthöfer Prize in 2018, and was translated into 16 languages. It addresses economic and political effects of globalization and introduces the concept of successive “Kuznets waves” of inequality. In March 2018, Milanovic was awarded (jointly with Mariana Mazzucato) the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Knowledge. 

Among his other roles, Milanovic was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington (2003-2005) and has held teaching appointments at the University of Maryland (2007-2013) and at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (1997- 2007). He was a visiting scholar at All Souls College in Oxford, and Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (2010-11).

Please RSVP to receive a link to join the webinar.

Webinar on E-Commerce at the WTO: What’s Going On?

Monday, March 30, 2020
11:00 am EST

Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to the first webinar hosted by The Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub in a series of free webinars on current and emerging data governance issues. As we “social distance,” we can simultaneously build a broader understanding of domestic and international data governance issues. The Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub is partnering with business associations such as the Computer and Communications Industry Association, civil society groups such as the Internet Society Washington DC and the World Wide Web Foundation, and other research organizations such as the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) to host these events. The webinars were conducted on Zoom and attendees were encouraged to ask questions of the speakers.

The inaugural seminar, which took place at 11am (EST) on March 30, 2020, was “E-Commerce at the WTO: What’s Going On?” The speaker was be Victor do Prado, Director, Council and Trade Negotiations Committee Division, WTO. The event was be co-organized with the Computer and Communications Industry Association and co-sponsored with the Institute for International Economic Policy. Mr. do Prado’s remarks covered the history, status and future of the talks, including the e-commerce moratorium. He spoke for 15 minutes and then the floor was opened to questions using Zoom’s raise-your-hand application. As a WTO official, Mr. do Prado spoke off the record. His remarks cannot be attributed but can be used on background. The press was welcome to attend and observe Chatham House rules.

Please contact James Nelson, Director of Communications and Strategy at the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub, with any questions or suggestions for webinars jinelson@gwu.edu

This event is co-sponsored by Digital Trade & Data Governance Hub; Internet Society: Greater Washington DC Chapter; Centre for International Governance Innovation; World Wide Web Foundation; and Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.

The LEAP Initiative with Jorge Dajani, Chief Ethics Officer, World Bank

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

The event will be held virtually via Zoom Webinar with a Moderated Q&A.
 

Jorge Dajani is the Chief Ethics Officer of the World Bank Group. He will describe the organization and activities of the ethics function of the World Bank Group, and explain, more generally, the specificities of ethics functions in international public organizations. He will emphasize the importance of creating a value-based culture. He will conclude with examples of challenging questions that an ethics function needs to address and discuss these with the students.

Jorge Dajani’s Bio: 

Jorge Dajani became the Chief Ethics Officer of the World Bank Group on June 15, 2018.

Dajani brings to this role a deep knowledge of multilateral development banks, a proven track record in corporate strategy and development, and a reputation for effective stakeholder engagement.  He has been widely recognized for his management skills and stewardship of policies and procedures within international financial institutions with a focus on strategy, ethics and governance. 

Prior to this position, Mr. Dajani was Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, a position he held since 2016. Previously, he served as Director General for Macroeconomic Analysis and International Finance at the Ministry of Economy of Spain. He has served on the Boards of Governors and Boards of Directors of several multilateral banks, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, CAF-Development Bank of Latin America, and the African Development Bank. He was Spain’s chief negotiator for the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Green Climate Fund.  He has also been a member of the economic policy committees of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

As Chief Ethics Officer, Mr. Dajani directs the Ethics and Business Conduct Department, which promotes the development and application of the highest ethical standards by staff members in the performance of their duties. He provides overall strategic leadership on ethics and business conduct, ensuring that ethics and the Bank Group’s values are fully incorporated into the strategy of the entire World Bank Group. He reports directly to the President of the World Bank Group.

Mr. Dajani, a Spanish national, has a Bachelor´s and a Master´s degree in Economics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He speaks Spanish, English, French and Mandarin.

This event is co-sponsored by the Elliott School of International Affairs, and is a part of the Leadership, Ethics, and Practice (LEAP) Initiative.

 

Covering The Other Half Billion: China’s Rural Sector

Thursday, February 27th, 2020
4:30 PM-6:00 PM

Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052

For much of post-1949 history, the rural sector has been the poor relation of China’s society and economy. Today, however, the rural sector lies at the heart of Xi Jinping’s economic agenda for China’s comprehensive development. The party’s and government’s ability to fulfill major economic goals—those relating to employment, food security and rebalancing of the economic system—depend critically on the success of its rural policies. So too does its ability to realize important social and other goals—including poverty reduction, the creation of a more inclusive society, and environmental sustainability. An economically and socially revitalised Chinese countryside will also impact the political stability which China’s leaders see as the bedrock of their continuing rule. This lecture will explore all of these dimensions.

 

Speakers

Professor Robert Ash

Professor of Economics with reference to China and Taiwan

School of Oriental & African Studies

University of London

Professor Robert Ash is a Professorial Fellow in the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he teaches in the School of Financial and Management Studies as Professor of Economics with reference to China and Taiwan. From 1986 to 1995 he was Head of the Contemporary China Institute at SOAS, and from 1997-2001 was Director of the EU-China Academic Network (ECAN). From 1999 to 2013 he was also Director of the SOAS Taiwan Studies Programme.

Professor Ash has held visiting research and teaching positions at universities in Australia, Hong Kong, France and Italy. He has been researching China for more than 40 years and has published on development issues relating to China, as well as on Taiwan and Hong Kong. His most recent major publication (2017) is a study of China’s agricultural development between 1840 and the present day, Agricultural Development in the World Periphery: A Global Economic History Approach. He has also undertaken a wide range of consultancy work in both private and public sectors—including for the British Government, the European Commission, European Parliament and the UN International Labour Organisation.

Moderator

Professor David Shambaugh

Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs

Director, China Policy Program

The George Washington University

 

Agricultural Transformation and Farmers’ Expectations: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

12:30 pm -2.00pm

Monroe Hall, Seminar Room 321 

2115 G St NW, Washington, DC 20052

Why adoption rate of potentially pro table agricultural technologies in Africa remains low is still puzzling. This paper uses a randomized control trial to study Ugandan subsistence smallholders’ decisions to adopt cash crops. A unique way of eliciting farmers price and yield expectations allows us to investigate the role of farmers’ ex-ante beliefs about crop profitability on adoption decisions. We find that the provision of extension services increases oilseeds adoption by 15%, and farmers who underestimate oilseeds price at baseline are the most likely to adopt the new crops. The results suggest that changes in expectations drive agricultural technology take-up.

Paper: “Agricultural Transformation and Farmers’ Expectations: Experimental Evidence from Uganda” by Harounan Kazianga (Oklahoma State University)

Colonial Origins and Fertility: Can the Market Overcome History?

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

12:30 pm -2.00pm

Monroe Hall, Seminar Room 321

2115 G St NW, Washington, DC 20052

Can market incentives overcome the long-term impact of historical institutions? We address this question by focusing on the role of colonial reproductive laws in shaping fertility behavior in Africa. Exploiting the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands and the resulting discontinuity in institutions across the British-French colonial borders, we find that women in former British areas are more likely to delay sexual debut and marriage, and that they have fewer children. However, these effects disappear in areas with exogenously high market access, where the opportunity cost of childbearing appears to be high irrespective of colonizer identity. They are only present in areas with low market access, where economic opportunities are scarcer. This heterogeneous impact of colonial origins remarkably extends to various measures of local economic development and household welfare. Examining causal mechanisms, we find that the fertility effect of colonial origins is directly linked to colonial reproductive laws and their impact on the use of modern methods of birth control. We rule out the impact of British colonization on income and women’s human capital as the primary channels through which its fertility effect operates. By uncovering novel findings on the heterogeneous nature of the colonial origins of comparative fertility behavior and economic development, our analysis implies that appropriately designed economic incentives can overcome the bonds of historical determinism.
 

Paper: “Colonial Origins and Fertility: Can the Market Overcome History?” by Roland Pongou (University of Ottawa)

7th Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 5, 2019
Center for Global Development
2055 L St NW, 5th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20036

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Conference Organizers:
Remi Jedwab, George Washington University
Jessica Goldberg, University of Maryland
Molly Lipscomb, University of Virginia
Andrew Zeitlin, Georgetown University

Agenda

8:30 – 9:00: Registration

9:00 – 9:45: Faculty Presentation:

“The Sustainability of Early Education Interventions: Do Learning Gains and Improved Teacher Practices Persist?” Jacobus Cilliers (Georgetown University)

9:45 – 10:30: Graduate Student Presentation:

“The gains from market integration: Rural roads, and separability of production and consumption decisions in smallholder farms” Hundanol Kebede (University of Virginia), Discussant: Jessica Goldberg (University of Maryland)

10:30 – 10:45: Coffee Break

10:45 – 11:30: Graduate Student Presentation:

“Measuring External Validity” Hao Bo (University of Maryland), Discussant: Owen Ozier (World Bank)
11:30 – 12:15 Faculty presentation: “Repelling Rape: Foreign Direct Investment Empowers Women” Sheetal Sekhri (University of Virginia)

12:15 – 1:00: Lunch

1:00 – 1:45: Graduate Student Presentation:

“The Precocious Period: Menarche, Education and Marriage in India” Madhulika Khanna (Georgetown University), Discussant: Pamela Jakiela (Center for Global Development)

1:45 – 2:30: Graduate Student Presentation:

“The Silenced Women: An Investigation on Reporting of Violence Against Women” Abhilasha Sahay (George Washington University), Discussant: Kelly Jones (American University)

2:30 – 3:15: Faculty Presentation:

“Peer effects on Violence: Experimental Evidence in El Salvador” Lelys Dinarte (World Bank)

3:15 – 3:30: Coffee Break

3:30 – 4:15: Faculty Presentation:

“Including Males: Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health for Female Adolescents” Jennifer Muz (George Washington University)

4:15 – 5:00: Faculty Presentation:

“Persuasion by Populist Propaganda: Individual Level Evidence from the 2015 Argentine Ballotage” Sebastian Galiani (University of Maryland)

Sensitivity Analyses in Poverty Measurement: The Case of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index

Monday January 18th, 2021

10:00 AM-11:15AM EST

Paper Description:

This paper provides an extensive sensitivity analyses of the global multidimensional poverty index (MPI), a counting-based measure of acute poverty covering over 100 developing countries. Empirically, the paper probes the sensitivity of poverty measures and comparisons to modifications in key parameters. Outcomes studied include the adjusted headcount and headcount ratios and their subnational rankings, as well as the exact set of people who are identified as poor. The parameters that are adjusted include the poverty cutoff, weights or deprivation values, and indicators. Multidimensional poverty measures are generated using 10 alternative poverty cutoffs, 231 alternative weighting schemes, and six alternative indicator selections, in addition to the global MPI baseline specifications. The present paper also suggests ‘second-order’ sensitivity analyses to deepen the understanding of the underlying methods by varying poverty cutoffs and indicators simultaneously.

Broadly speaking, the results suggest that parameter choices can make a difference, which is consistent with the fact that often dominance results may not emerge. Specifically, the evidence suggests that fundamentally different parameters may substantially change the performance of the entire poverty measure or even its very  nature (e.g., for a union cutoff or extreme weighting schemes). However, the results also suggest little sensitivity of outcomes when changing parameters within plausible ranges. One implication of these results is that sensitivity analyses in poverty measurement have a central role in the initial process fixing the parameters, in which usually numerous stakeholders participate, including policymakers and experts alike. The reason is that an agreement on a range of values is easier to achieve than on one particular number. An important technical insight is that union-based measures are more sensitive than the base-line measure, e.g., with respect to indicator selections.

About the Presenter:

pic of Nicolai Nicolai Suppa is currently postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Demographic Studies in Barcelona and Research Associate with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in economics from TU Dortmund in Germany, where he also studied economics and sociology. His research interests are best described as applied welfare economics, including multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, research on subjective well-being, the capability approach, labour economics, and applied econometrics. Nicolai has published articles in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Social Choice & Welfare, Empirical Economics, and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. At OPHI he is co-leading the estimation of the global MPI since 2018 and editing the OPHI Working Paper Series.

About the Discussant:

pic of monica pinillar Monica Pinilla-Roncancio is a Physiotherapist with a Master’s degree in Economics from Universidad del Rosario. She has also a Master’s degree in Health Economics, Policy and Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. She finished her PhD in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, UK. From 2016 to 2018 she was as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Universidad de los Andes and currently is an Assistant Professor at the same university. She is the Co-director of Metrics and Policy at OPHI and has been working in OPHI since 2014. She coordinates the work in Latin America, East Asia and some countries in Africa and Middle East. Her main research interest are disability, multidimensional poverty, inequality and health economics.

pic of Dr Suman SethDr Suman Seth is an associate professor at the Leeds University Business School. He joined the business school in 2015. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. He obtained a PhD degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University in the USA. After his PhD, he served as a Research Office and as a Senior Research Officer at OPHI between 2010 and 2015. He is primarily interested in Development Economics with a particular emphasis on measurement methodologies and policy-oriented applications. Previously, he has served as consultants to the Regional Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to the Development Research Groups at the World Bank, and to the Asian Development Bank.

About the Moderator:

Picture of James E. FosterJames E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autonoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

 

This event and seminar series was jointly organized with the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP Human Development Report Office. The seminars will be hosted by IIEP Co-Director James Foster.

ophi logo

All Aboard: The Aggregate Effects of Port Development

Wednesday, October 30, 2019
2:30 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.
Kendrick Conference Room
Monroe Hall, Room 321
2115 G St NW Washington, D.C., 20052.

Please join us to listen to Claudia Steinwender from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Steinwender has written extensively in the area of international trade, economic history and innovation and productivity. She will be presenting a paper called “All Aboard: The Aggregate Effects of Port Development”.

 

Elusive Development in Latin America: Structural Challenges and Instability Hotspots

Friday, October 11th, 2019

2:00 – 3:30pm, Room 212

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052

The event will feature Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva, Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP. He will be speaking as part of IIEP’s International Economic Policy Forum series. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies M.A. program (LASP).

The Power of Public Private Partnerships to Drive Gender Equality – SDG #5

Thursday, October 17th, 2019

4:00 pm – 5:30pm

Lisner Auditorium

800 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20052

This panel aims to build a greater understanding of the power of public-private partnership investments and their ability to impact and accelerate change in support of SDG #5.

The program will provide a forum for exchange on global best practices related to education, healthcare, access to capital/business and leadership.

Please also join us for a networking reception immediately following the panel session.

MODERATOR:
Ambassador Melanne Verveer
Co-founder Seneca Women

SPEAKERS:
Stephanie von Friedeburg
Chief Operating Officer, International Finance Corporation
Jane Fraser
CEO of Latin America, Citi
Julie Monaco
Global Head of Public Sector Coverage, Citi
Henriette Kolb
Manager, Gender Business Department, International Finance Corporation
Kathryn Kaufman
Managing Director for Global Women’s Initiatives, Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Jacqueline Caglia
Director of Communications and US Programs, Merck
Jill Miller
Chief Program and Administrative Officer, Girl Rising
Anna Falth
Senior Programme Manager of the WE EMPOWER – G7, UN Women

This event is co-sponsored by Citi and the International Finance Corporation. 

South Africa: Rebuilding the Dream

Monday, November 11th, 2019

2:00pm – 3:30pm

Lindner Family Commons, Room 602

Elliott School for International Affairs

1957 E Street, NW Washington DC 20052

Event Overview

Twenty-five years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economy is in crisis. Inequality in South Africa is the highest in the world; unemployment is on the rise; and economic growth (projected at 0.8 percent in 2019) has hovered precariously close to recession. In After Dawn: Hope After State Captureformer South African Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, the man who first blew the whistle on corruption in the Zuma administration, offers a blunt assessment of the country’s economic woes and the failures of governance that caused it. He proposes a series of practical solutions to build a growing, job-creating economy that can begin to meet South African’s unfulfilled expectations of economic transformation.

Panelists 
 
Mcebisi Jonas, Author of After Dawn: Hope after State Capture and former Deputy Finance Minister of South Africa
Mcebisi Jonas is author of After Dawn: Hope after State Captureand chairman designate of MTN, one of Africa’s largest techonology companies. He is the former Deputy Finance Minister of South Africa, a position he held from 2014 to 2016. In that position, he was an early whistle-blower in the “Gupta-Gate” state capture scandal, and was subsequently fired by President Jacob Zuma. He currently serves on President Cyril Ramphosa’s team of international trade and investment “ambassadors.” 
 
Stephen Smith, Professor of Economics and International Affairs and Chair, Department of Economics, GW
Stephen Smith’s work focuses on economic development, with a special focus on solutions to poverty. He also researches economic development strategies, developing country financing issues, and the economics of adaptation to climate change in low-income countries. He has also conducted extensive research on the economics of cooperatives, works councils, and codetermination. He is currently on sabbatical at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, in Florence, Italy, where he is a UNICEF Senior Fellow.
 
Yusuf Shahid, Chief Economist, The Growth Dialogue
Shahid Yusuf is Chief Economist of the Growth Dialogue. Dr. Yusuf brings many decades of economic development experience to the Dialogue, having been intensively involved with the growth policies of many of the most successful East Asian economies during key periods of their histories. He has written extensively on development issues, with a special focus on East Asia and has also published widely in various academic journals. He has authored or edited 24 books on industrial and urban development, innovation systems and tertiary education.
 
Moderated by Jennifer Cooke, Director of the Institute for African Studies
Jennifer Cooke is formerly the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she led research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and provides briefings, testimony, and policy recommendations to U.S. policymakers, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. military. 

This event is co-sponosored by the Institute for African Studies. 

How Should We Measure City Size? Theory and Evidence Within and Across Rich and Poor Countries

August 2019

Remi Jedwab, Prakash Loungani, and Anthony Yezer

IIEP working paper 2019-11

Abstract: It is obvious that holding city population constant, differences in cities across the world are enormous. Urban giants in poor countries are not large using measures such as land area, interior space or value of output. These differences are easily reconciled mathematically as population is the product of land area, structure space per unit land (i.e., heights), and population per unit interior space (i.e., crowding). The first two are far larger in the cities of developed countries while the latter is larger for the cities of developing countries. In order to study sources of diversity among cities with similar population, we construct a version of the standard urban model (SUM) that yields the prediction that the elasticity of city size with respect to income could be similar within both developing countries and developed countries. However, differences in income and urban technology can explain the physical differences between the cities of developed countries and developing countries. Second, using a variety of newly merged data sets, the predictions of the SUM for similarities and differences of cities in developed and developing countries are tested. The findings suggest that population is a sufficient statistic to characterize city differences among cities within the same country, not across countries.

JEL Codes: R13; R14; R31; R41; R42; O18; O2; O33

Keywords: Urbanization; Cities; Urban Giants; Population; Standard Urban Model; Measurement; Urban Technology; Building Heights; Sprawl; Housing; Transportation

IMF Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook (REO)

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.

Economic Diversification in the Post-Oil Era

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

Should Leaders Focus on Poverty or Inequality? Ethical and Policy Perspectives

The Leadership, Ethics, and Practice Initiative and the Institute for International Economic Policy Presents:

 
Should Leaders Focus on Poverty or Inequality?
Ethical and Policy Perspectives 
 

Monday, February 25, 2019

5:00pm to 6:00pm

Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Commons, 6th floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052
 
Join us for an evening discussion on the topic:
“Should Leaders Focus on Poverty or Inequality? : Ethical and Policy Perspectives”
 with Dr. Douglas Hicks Professor of Religion and Dean of Oxford College at the Emory University.

This event is on the record and open to media. 

 

Development and Microfinance: Learning from Steve Hollingworth

Steve Hollingworth

President and CEO of the Grameen Foundation

Co-Sponsored with Sigma Iota Rho, Official Honor Society of the Elliott School

Thursday, November 29, 2018

7:30pm to 9:00pm – Reception to Follow

 

Elliott School of International Affairs
Room B12
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Steve HollingworthSteve Hollingworth’s unflagging commitment through 30 years of work in international development has been to ensure that the delivery of financial services benefits the world’s poorest people and fulfills its promise of alleviating poverty.

Prior to joining Grameen Foundation, Steve was President of Freedom from Hunger. Beginning in 2011, he focused that organization on the intersection of financial services and ending hunger through the empowerment of women in rural communities. Previously, he served as Chief Operating Officer for CARE, where he was instrumental in developing and implementing the organization-wide strategy and was responsible for direct-line management of global operations and programs with a total of 13,000 employees and a budget of $650 million. He has also held senior field positions in Asia (India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh), Africa (Lesotho) and Latin America (Bolivia), building collaboration between practitioners, technical assistance providers, donors and government agencies.

Steve’s roots in financial services for the very poor go back to early days with CARE-Bangladesh, the largest CARE mission in the world. Based on his leadership in the financial services sector, he also served for many years as a member of the Microfinance CEO Working Group. His areas of expertise include microenterprise and microfinance, education, agriculture, health and civil society strengthening.

Steve has an M.S. in Economics, Development Studies, from Victoria University of Manchester, in Manchester, England. He enrolled there as a Rotarian Fellow, and his thesis analyzed the field of microcredit and the role of Grameen Bank. In that sense, Steve’s position as President and CEO of Grameen Foundation brings him full circle. Steve has a B.A. in Economics from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, not far from his home town of Elgin, Illinois.

The International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook

We are delighted to invite you to the International Monetary Fund’s 2018 World Economic Outlook at the George Washington University. The talk will consist of three sections, starting with an overview of global prospects and policies and then moving onto a discussion of the global recovery 10 years after the global financial crisis and challenges for monetary policy in emerging economies.

 

Tuesday, November 6, 2018
9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The Commons, 6th Floor
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052

Schedule of Events

9:30 –  9:45 a.m. Opening Remarks

  • Maggie Chen, George Washington University

9:45 – 10:15 a.m. Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies

  • Presenter: Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, International Monetary Fund

10:15 – 10:30 a.m. Coffee Break

10:30 – 11:15 a.m. Chapter 2:  The Global Recovery 10 Years after the 2008 Financial Meltdown

  • Presenter: Wenjie Chen, International Monetary Fund
  • Discussant: David Dollar, Brookings Institute

11:15 – 11:30 a.m. Coffee Break

11:30 – 12:15 p.m. Chapter 3:  Challenges for Monetary Policy in Emerging Economies as Global Financial Conditions Normalize

  • Presenter: Rudolfs Bems, International Monetary Fund
  • Discussant: Jay Shambaugh, George Washington University

12:15 p.m. Concluding remarks

Chapter 1: Global Prospects and Policies

Global growth for 2018–19 is projected to remain steady at its 2017 level, but its pace is less vigorous than projected in April and it has become less balanced. Downside risks to global growth have risen in the past six months and the potential for upside surprises has receded. Global growth is projected at 3.7 percent for 2018–19—0.2 percentage point lower for both years than forecast in April. The downward revision reflects surprises that suppressed activity in early 2018 in some major advanced economies, the negative effects of the trade measures implemented or approved between April and mid-September, as well as a weaker outlook for some key emerging market and developing economies arising from country-specific factors, tighter financial conditions, geopolitical tensions, and higher oil import bills.

Chapter 2:  The Global Recovery 10 Years after the 2008 Financial Meltdown

This chapter takes stock of the global economic recovery a decade after the 2008 financial crisis. Output losses after the crisis appear to be persistent, irrespective of whether a country suffered a banking crisis in 2007–08. Sluggish investment was a key channel through which these losses registered, accompanied by long-lasting capital and total factor productivity shortfalls relative to precrisis trends. Policy choices preceding the crisis and in its immediate aftermath influenced postcrisis variation in output. Underscoring the importance of macroprudential policies and effective supervision, countries with greater financial vulnerabilities in the precrisis years suffered larger output losses after the crisis. Countries with stronger precrisis fiscal positions and those with more flexible exchange rate regimes experienced smaller losses. Unprecedented and exceptional policy actions taken after the crisis helped mitigate countries’ postcrisis output losses.

Chapter 3:  Challenges for Monetary Policy in Emerging Economies as Global Financial Conditions Normalize

Inflation in emerging market and developing economies since the mid-2000s has, on average, been low and stable. This chapter investigates whether these recent gains in inflation performance are sustainable as global financial conditions normalize. The findings are as follows: first, despite the overall stability, sizable heterogeneity in inflation performance and in variability of longer-term inflation expectations remains among emerging markets. Second, changes in longer-term inflation expectations are the main determinant of inflation, while external conditions play a more limited role, suggesting that domestic, not global, factors are the main contributor to the recent gains in inflation performance. Third, further improvements in the extent of anchoring of inflation expectations can significantly improve economic resilience to adverse external shocks in emerging markets. Anchoring reduces inflation persistence and limits the pass-through of currency depreciations to domestic prices, allowing monetary policy to focus more on smoothing fluctuations in output.

Forging Pathways Out of Poverty: The Global Journey of BRAC

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

4:00 to 5:30 p.m.

Elliott School of International Affairs
Room 602
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

The Institute for International Economic Policy invites you to a talk by Faruque Ahmed, the executive director of BRAC International, on his organization’s efforts to spread innovative poverty solutions born in Bangladesh to the rest of Asia and Africa.

Faruque Ahmed is the executive director of BRAC International. He previously held the position of senior director at BRAC International. He is also a member of the executive management committee.

Prior to this, Mr Ahmed was the director of BRAC’s health programme for 10 years, playing a critical role in shaping the organisation’s health strategy and scaling several community-based health and nutrition interventions.

Before joining BRAC, Mr Ahmed worked as senior operations officer in the health, nutrition and population team at the World Bank, Bangladesh.

Mr Ahmed started his career as a research and planning officer in 1976, and then worked in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. He serves as a member of the working group of Bangladesh Health Watch and formerly represented civil society on the GAVI Alliance board.

Mr Ahmed completed his master’s in health sciences from Johns Hopkins University, and master’s in economics from the University of Dhaka.

5th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

 

Friday, September 7, 2018
8:30am to 7:30pm

Preston Auditorium, The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C., 20433

Across the developing world, the growth of cities is outpacing effective policy. Low density land use results in rapidly expanding cities, raising the costs of infrastructure and service provision and limiting liveability and productivity. At the same time, limited investments in transport infrastructure such as roads limits the connectivity between individuals and opportunities that make cities engines for growth. Effective policy to address these challenges requires an understanding of the spatial organisation of cities, and how the distribution of private and public investments across a city affect economic growth.

On 7 September 2018, the 5th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Conference will bring together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to the spatial organisation of cities and economic growth. In particular, the conference will be focusing on effective land and transport policy in cities and the implications of urban development for national growth. This conference is hosted by the World Bank (Development Research Group), George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy),  the International Monetary Fund, and the International Growth Centre.

 

  • 8:30-9:00 – Coffee and Registration
  • 9:00-10:45 – Welcoming Remarks
    • Chair and Moderator: 
      Shantayanan Devarajan
      Senior Director, Development Economics, World Bank
    • Panelists:
      Aisa Kirabo Kacyira
      Deputy Director UN-Habitat, former mayor of Kigali
      Edward Glaeser
      Professor of Economics, Harvard and International Growth Center
  • 10:45-11:00 – Coffee Break
  • 11:00 -12:30 – Session One: Land
    • Mini Keynote: Informal Land Use
      Harris Selod
      Development Research Group, The World Bank
    • Backyarding
      Jan Brueckner, Claus Rabe, and Harris Selod
    • Compactness
      Vernon Henderson
    • Chair:
      TBC
    • Discussant: 
      Mariaflavia Harari
      Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
  • 12:30-13:30 – Lunch
  • 13.30-14:15 – Keynote Address:
    • The Geography of Development
      Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
      Princeton University
    • Chair:
      Asli Demirguc-Kunt
      Research Director, Development Research Group, World Bank
  • 14:15 -15:45 – Session Two: Transportation
    • Mini Keynote: “Cars in Cities”
      Matthew Kahn
    • Transport in a Congested City – A Computer Equilibrium Model Applied to Kampala City
      Louise Bernard, Julia Bird, Tony Venables
    • Who Wins? Who Loses? Understanding the Spatially Differentiated Effects of Belt and Road within Central Asia
      Bader El Hifnawy, Somik Lall, Mathilde Lebrand
    • Chair:
      Marianna Fay
      Chief Economist, Climate Change
    • Discussant:
      Leah Brooks
      Assistant Professor, George Washington University
  • 15:45-16:00 – Coffee Break
  • 16:00-17:30 – Session Three: Urbanization, Growth, and Development
    • Mini Keynote:
      Douglas Gollin
    • In Search of a Spatial Equilibrium in the Developing World
      Douglas Gollin, Martina Kirchberger, David Lagakos
    • Modern Urban Technology and the Future of the New Urban Giants
      Remi Jedwab, Prakash Loungani, Anthony Yezer
    • Chair:
      Chris Papageorgiou
      International Monetary Fund
    • Discussant:
      Deniz Igan
      Deputy Division Chief, Research Department’s Macro Financial Division, IMF
  • 17:30-18:00 – Break
  • 18:00-19:30 – Cocktail Reception and Welcome Speech by Maggie Chen
    • At George Washington University, Lindner Commons Room (6th Floor) of the Elliott School of International Affairs, 1957 E St. N.W. (at the intersection of E and 19th Streets, on E Street), Washington, DC.

Misallocation, Informality, and Firm Dynamics in Mexico

Santiago Levy

Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge, Inter-American Development Bank

Misallocation, Informality, and Firm Dynamics in Mexico

Monday, April 23, 2018

5:30 to 7:00pm – Reception to Follow

 

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

Santiago Levy  is the Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge for the Inter-American Development Bank. Previously, he was General Manager and Chief Economist for the IDB Research Department.

Prior to joining the IDB he was General Director at the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) from December 2000 to October 2005. Under his tenure, he promoted changes to the Social Security Act to increase transparency and accountability in IMSS finances and create long-term reserves.

From 1994 to 2000, Levy served as the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico, becoming the main architect of the renowned social program Progresa-Oportunidades that benefits the poor. He managed budgetary adjustments during the 1994-95 economic crisis and the 1998 fall in oil prices. Previous positions include President of the Federal Competition Commission and Director of the Economic Deregulation Program at the Ministry of Trade and Industrial Promotion.

Levy holds a Ph.D. in economics from Boston University and a Masters in political economy from the same university. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Cambridge University.

Santiago Levy

6th Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 20, 2017

Elliott School of International Affairs
Room 212
1957 E St. NW
Washington D.C. 20052

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

View the Schedule

Day:  Friday 20 April, 8.50-5.00.

8.30 Light breakfast

8.50 Welcome remarks by Maggie Chen (GWU)

9.00-9.50 Adriana Kugler (Georgetown). – “Do CCTs improve employment and earnings in the very long term? Evidence from Mexico”

9.50-10.20 Paper by PhD student: Kodjo Aflagah (Maryland) “Internal migrants’ ethnic capital and labor market outcomes in South Africa”

10.20-10.35 Discussion by Andrew Zeitlin (Georgetown) and additional questions from faculty

10.35-10.50 Coffee break

10.50-11.40 Isaac Mbiti (UVA). The Returns to Apprenticeships: Experimental Evidence from Ghana

11.40-12.10 Paper by PhD student: Amjad Khan (GWU). “Islam, Institutions and Child Investment: Evidence from Gender Discrimination in Pakistan”

12.10-12.25 Discussion by Sandip Sukhtankar (UVA) and additional questions from faculty

12.25-1.30 Lunch

1.30-2.20 Sarah Baird. (GWU). “Building Businesses among the Vulnerable: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania”

2.20-2.50 Paper by PhD student: Dario Sansone (Georgetown). “Man vs. machine in predicting successful entrepreneurs:  Evidence from a business plan competition in Nigeria”

2.50-3.05 Discussion by Kenneth Leonard (Maryland) and additional questions from faculty

3.05-3.20 Coffee break

3.20-4.10 Jessica Goldberg (Maryland). ​Leveraging Patients’ Social Networks to Overcome Tuberculosis Under-detection in India: A Field Experiment

4.10-4.40 Paper by PhD student Ramiro Burga (UVA). “Fixing an Instructional Mismatch: The Case of Bilingual Education among Indigenous Students in Peru”

4.40-4.55 Discussion by Jennifer Muz (GWU) and additional questions from faculty

5.00 Reception

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

Brazil and China: A Developing Partnership

André Soares is a Counselor at the Inter-American Development Bank’s Board of Directors and Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and David Shambaugh is a professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the China Policy Program at the Elliott School of Internation Affairs.

Monday, November 6, 2017

12:00 to 1:30pm

 

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Building Brazil’s Future: A Conference on Innovation, Investment and Economic Development

View the Agenda

Building Brazil’s Future brings together researchers, business leaders, and policymakers to discuss the country’s efforts to launch a sustainable economic recovery through game changing innovations and investments along with key policy reforms. The conference features two discussion panels. The first treats the issues surrounding the role of innovation in developing the Brazilian economy and the second focuses on how investments can promote innovation and higher productivity across sectors.

Speakers

  • Raphael Gheneim Camargo, Secretary of Planning and Innovation of the Municipality of Cotia, SP, Columbia University
  • Otaviano Canuto, Executive Director, Brazil, The World Bank Group
  • Thiago Augusto Cesar, CEO at Bit.One
  • Maggie Chen, Director of the Institute of International Economic Policy
  • Gregory Harrington, Partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
  • Antonio Josino Meirelles, Executive Director Brazilian Industries Coalition
  • Gabriel Petrus, Executive Director, Brazil International Chamber of Commerce
  • Justin Duarte Pine, Director, International Affairs for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization
  • Antonio H. Pinheiro Silveira, Executive Director, Brazil and Suriname Inter-American Development Bank
  • Stefan Schimenes, Founder and CEO at Investorise

4th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

Friday, September 8, 2017

Preston Auditorium
The World Bank
1818 H Street, N.W., 20433 Washington D.C.

This conference hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy) and the International Growth Centre Cities Program brings together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss the challenges of sustainable urban development in developing countries.

One of the great challenges of 21st century cities in developing countries is that they must fulfill the requirements of connectivity in production for businesses and address the negative externalities for consumers of density with extremely limited financial resources and public capacity. This raises the following questions: What national policies strengthen and weaken developing world cities, and what infrastructure investments deliver the largest growth benefits? In particular, the aim of this conference will be to reflect upon how cities in developing countries should focus their efforts on improving their land and housing sector (see Session 1: Land), their transportation networks (see Session 2: Transportation), or their sanitation infrastructure (see Session 3: Public Services). In other words, how can we build, or rebuild, cities in the future in order to promote economic growth and reduce poverty?

Rémi Jedwab, Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs, George Washington University

Rémi Jedwab is an associate professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Elliott School and the Department of Economics of George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Paris School of Economics. He was also a visiting Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics for three years. Professor Jedwab’s main fields of research are development and growth, urban economics, public economics and political economy. Some of the issues he has studied include urbanization and structural transformation, the relationship between population growth and economic growth, the economic effects of transportation infrastructure, and the roles of institutions, human capital and technology in development. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic Growth and the Journal of Urban Economics. Recently, Professor Jedwab’s research areas have included the phenomenon of urbanization without economic growth, and his research has been highlighted by The Atlantic’s CityLab and the Boston Globe.

 

Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard

Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves as Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He studies the economics of cities, and has written scores of articles on urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992 and has been at Harvard since then.

 

Harris Selod, Senior Economist, The World Bank

Harris Selod is a Senior Economist with the Development Research Group of the World Bank. His current research focuses on urban development, including issues related to transport and land use, as well as land tenure, land markets and the political economy of the land sector in developing countries, with a specific interest in West Africa. His publications cover a variety of topics in urban and public economics including theories of squatting and residential informality, the political economy of transport infrastructure, the effects of residential segregation on schooling and unemployment, or the impact of land rights formalization and place-based policies. He has been chair of the World Bank’s Land Policy and Administration Thematic Group (2011-2013) and is currently leading a World Bank research program on transport.

Keynote Speaker

Paul Romer

Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, World Bank

Dr. Paul Romer took office as the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President in October, 2016. Romer is on leave from his position as University Professor at New York University. His initial interest in technological progress led to research on topics ranging from an abstract analysis of how the economics of ideas differs from the economics of objects to practical suggestions about how to improve science and technology policy. More recently, his research on catch-up growth in low- and middle-income countries has emphasized the importance of government policies that encourage orderly urban expansion. Before NYU, Romer taught at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and while there, also started Aplia, an education technology company dedicated to increasing student effort. Romer has also variously taught economics at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester.

Chairs and Panelists

Maggie Chen

Professor of Economics, GW and IIEP

Maggie Xiaoyang Chen is the Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy and Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. Professor Chen’s areas of research expertise include foreign direct investment, international trade, and regional trade agreements and her work has been published extensively in academic journals. She has worked as an economist in the research department of the World Bank, a consultant for various divisions of the World Bank and the International Finance Cooperation, and a trade policy advisor at the U.S. congressional Budget Office leading policy analyses on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. She has also held visiting professor positions in various universities including Boston College and University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China and 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.

Craig Kesson

Executive Director for the Directorate of the Mayor, City of Cape Town, South Africa

Craig Kesson is the City of Cape Town Executive Director for the Directorate of the Mayor as well as the Chief Resilience Officer, in partnership with the 100 Resilient Cities Programme. He has worked in several senior roles in city management and has advised a number of metro governments. He previously served as the National Director of Research for South Africa’s Official Opposition. He is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu Natal, the University of Stellenbosch Business School, the University of Liverpool, and the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His specialisations are in public policy and strategy; project portfolios, and operations modelling. He is the co-author with Mayor Patricia De Lille of an upcoming book on the nature of city leadership and management planned for publication in August 2017.

Marianne Fay

Chief Economist, Climate Change Group, World Bank Group

Marianne Fay is the chief economist for climate change at the World Bank. She co-directed the World Development Report 2010 on Climate Change. Ms. Fay has served in multiple regions in the World Bank, including Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa, working on infrastructure, urbanization, and more recently on climate change and green growth. Her research has explored the role of infrastructure and urbanization in development, with a particular focus on urban poverty, climate change, and green growth, on which she has authored numerous articles and books. As chief economist for sustainable development, she led the World Bank’s flagship report for the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development.

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez

Senior Director, Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice, The World Bank

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez is the Senior Director for the World Bank Group’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice. In this position, Mr. Ijjasz-Vasquez leads a team of over 600 technical experts deployed across the world, leveraging global knowledge and collaborating with partners to help tackle the world’s most complex development challenges in: social inclusion and sustainability; mainstreaming resilience in all dimensions development; territorial and rural development; and urban planning, services and institutions. Before this, he was Director for Sustainable Development of the Latin America and Caribbean Region since November 2011, covering infrastructure, environment and climate change, social development, agriculture and rural development, disaster risk management, and urban development with an active portfolio of about $17 billion. From 2007 to 2011, he was based in Beijing, where he managed the Sustainable Development Unit for China and Mongolia. Earlier in his career, he managed the global trust-funded programs ESMAP and WSP in energy and water and sanitation, respectively. Mr. Ijjasz has a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in civil and environmental engineering, with specialization in hydrology and water resources. He has been a lecturer at the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Johns Hopkins University, and at Tsinghua University. He is a Colombian and Hungarian national.

William Maloney

Chief Economist, Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, World Bank

William F. Maloney is Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions in the World Bank Group. Previously he was Chief Economist for Trade and Competitiveness and Global Lead on Innovation and Productivity. Prior to the Bank, he was a Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1990-1997) and then joined, working as Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America until 2009. From 2009 to 2014, he was Lead Economist in the Development Economics Research Group. From 2011 to 2014 he was Visiting Professor at the University of the Andes and worked closely with the Colombian government on innovation and firm upgrading issues.

Jennifer Semakula Musisi

Executive Director, Kampala Capital City Authority

Jennifer Semakula-Musisi is the first Executive Director of the Kampala Capital City Authority that was established to administer Uganda’s Capital City-Kampala on behalf of the Central Government. Over the past six Years, Jennifer has headed the transformation of the City and initiated a number of activities that have enhanced efficiency in services delivery and paved way for the current steady Transformation of Kampala. The achievements over the period have become an admiration and a benchmark for many upcoming municipalities and Cities in East Africa and beyond. Jennifer is a lawyer by profession. She served as the Commissioner Legal Services and Board Affairs in Uganda Revenue Authority; and; she is an entrepreneur with several successful private businesses in Uganda.

Michael Toman

Research Manager, Environment and Energy Research Program, Development Research Group, The World Bank

Michael Toman (Mike) is Lead Economist on Climate Change in the Development Research Group and Manager of the Energy and Environment Team. His current research interests include alternative energy resources, policies for responding to risks of climate change catastrophes, timing of investments for greenhouse gas reduction, and mechanisms for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through reduced deforestation. During his career Mike has done extensive research on climate change economics and policy, energy markets and policy, environmental policy instruments, and approaches to achieving sustainable development. Prior to joining the World Bank in fall 2008, he held senior analytical and management positions at RAND Corporation, Inter-American Development Bank, and Resources for the Future. His teaching experience includes adjunct positions at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the School of the Environment, University of California at Santa Barbara. Mike has a B.A. from Indiana University, a M.Sc. in applied mathematics from Brown University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Rochester.

Anna Wellenstein

Director of Strategy and Operations, Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience (SURR) Global Practice, World Bank

Anna is a key member of the World Bank’s SURR GP senior management team that sets strategy for analytics and financing in areas such as disaster risk reduction, urban renovation, and geospatial technology. She also oversees partnerships with bilateral, UN, and regional organizations. Anna has over 20 years of experience in urban development. She’s led efforts to design and finance investments, facilitate policy reforms and build capacity to help developing countries reduce poverty and boost equity. Anna has been responsible for technical oversight of new projects financed by the Bank, the portfolio quality of ongoing projects, and setting sector and country strategies. Anna oversees $25 billion in lending to developing countries in over 200 projects, 325 studies and technical assistance projects. She’s developed strong partnerships with governments in countries ranging from large middle income to small island states as well as development agencies and academia.

Horacio Terraza

Lead Urban Specialist for the Latin American Region, The World Bank

Horacio has more than 20 years of professional experience in the urban-environmental field, having worked both in the private sector and multilateral development organizations. He has just rejoined the World Bank as Lead Urban Specialist for the Latin American Region focusing on cities and Resilience. During the previous 6 years he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as the Coordinator of the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) and also as Principal Water Specialist. Before the IDB Horacio worked for 11 years as a Senior Environmental Specialist at the World Bank, leading the urban environmental agenda in the Latin American Department. Prior to that, he worked in the private sector as a Project Manager for environmental engineering companies providing treatment and final disposal of hazardous substances. Horacio was trained as a mechanical engineer at the National University of La Plata in Argentina and holds a Master’s in International Economics and International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Presenters

Robert Buckley

Affiliated Scholar, Urban Institute

Bob Buckley is an Affiliated Scholar at the Urban Institute. He was Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, Advisor at the World Bank, and Senior Fellow at the New School. He has written widely on urbanization and development in both the popular press and academic journals, and has helped prepare projects in a variety of places.

Gilles Duranton

Accessibility and Mobility in Urban India, Wharton School

Gilles Duranton is Professor of Accessibility and Mobility in Urban India and holds the Dean’s Chair in Real Estate. He joined the Wharton School in 2012 after holding academic positions at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. A graduate from HEC Paris and Sorbonne University, he obtained his PhD in economics jointly from the London School of Economics and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris. His research focuses on urban and transportation issues. His empirical work is concerned with urban growth and the estimation of the costs and benefits of cities and clusters. He is also interested in the effects of transportation infrastructure on urban development and the evaluation of local policies. He also conducts theoretical research to gain insight about the distribution of city sizes, the skill composition, and sectoral patterns of activities in cities.

Somik Lall

Lead Economist, The World Bank

Somik V. Lall is a Lead Economist for Urban Development at the World Bank’s Urban Development and Resilience Unit in the Sustainable Development Network. He is the lead author of a World Bank report on urbanization “Planning, Connecting, and Financing Cities Now: Priorities for City Leaders.” He was a core team member of the 2009 World Development Report “Reshaping Economic Geography”, and recently Senior Economic Counsellor to the Indian Prime Minister’s National Transport Development Policy Committee. Somik currently leads a World Bank program on the Urbanization Reviews, which provides diagnostic tools and a policy framework for policymakers to manage rapid urbanization and city development. His research interests span urban and spatial economics, infrastructure development, and public finance. He has over 40 publications featuring in peer reviewed journals, edited volumes, and working papers. Somik holds a bachelors degree in engineering, masters in city planning, and doctorate in economics and public policy.

Daniel da Mata

Researcher, Institute for Applied Economic Research

Daniel Da Mata is a Tenured Researcher at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea). He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Since joining Ipea in 2004, he has held several positions at the institute, including Head of Urban Studies and Head of Quantitative Research Division. His research on Urban, Public and Development Economics has been published in peer reviewed journals and book chapters. He has recently won the BMZ/GIZ Public Policy Award and the European Regional Science Association EPAINOS Award.

Matthew Turner

Professor of Economics, Brown University

Matthew Turner is a Professor of Economics at Brown University. He regularly teaches courses in urban and environmental economics, and occasionally, microeconomic theory. He is broadly interested in environmental and urban policy and his recent research focuses on the economics of land use and transportation. Professor Turner holds a Ph. D. in economics from Brown University and is a Co-Editor of the Journal of Urban Economics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies and Econometrica, and is regularly featured in the popular press.

Anthony Venables

Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies

Tony Venables CBE is Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford where he also directs the Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies and a programme of research on urbanisation in developing economies. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Econometric Society. Former positions include Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development, professor at the London School of Economics, research manager of the trade research group in the World Bank, and advisor to the UK Treasury. He has published extensively in the areas of international trade, spatial economics, and natural resources, including work on trade and imperfect competition, economic integration, multinational firms, and economic geography.

Discussants

Alain Bertaud

Adjunct Professor, Marron Institute

Alain Bertaud is an Adjunct Professor at the Marron Institute and a senior research scholar at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project. At the moment, he is writing a book about urban planning that is tentatively titled Order Without Design. Bertaud previously held the position of principal urban planner at the World Bank. After retiring from the Bank in 1999, he worked as an independent consultant. Prior to joining the World Bank he worked as a resident urban planner in a number of cities around the world: Bangkok, San Salvador (El Salvador), Port au Prince (Haiti), Sana’a (Yemen), New York, Paris, Tlemcen (Algeria), and Chandigarh (India).

Leah Brooks

Assistant Professor, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington University

Leah Brooks is Assistant Professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University. After receiving her PhD from UCLA in 2005, she taught at the University of Toronto and McGill University, and worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Her research interest is urban political economy. Her work to date has examined Business Improvement Districts to understand the resolution of collective action problems, and the Community Development Block Grant program to analyze the political economy of grant giving at the municipal and sub-municipal levels. She has documented the existence and analyzed the impacts of municipally-imposed tax and expenditure limits, studied the premium required to assemble land, analyzed the long-term effects of streetcars on urban form, and is hard at work examining the impact of containerization on cities.

Maisy Wong

Associate Professor, Real Estate at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Maisy Wong is an Associate Professor of Real Estate at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Her current research interests include household mobility and sorting behavior, urbanization in developing countries, and real estate finance. Her research has been published in journals such as the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, AEJ: Applied Economics, and Journal of Finance. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, at Berkeley.

8:30-9:00 AM Coffee and Registration

9:00-10:45 AM Opening Session: Urban Governance

Welcoming Remarks: Michael Toman, Research Manager, Energy and Environment, Development Research Group, The World Bank; Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior

Director, Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice, The World Bank

Chair: William Maloney, Chief Economist, Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, The World Bank

Panelists: Craig Kesson, Executive Director for the Directorate of the Mayor, City of Cape Town, South Africa; Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics, Harvard

and IGC; Jennifer Musisi, Executive Director, Kampala Capital City Authority, Uganda; Paul Romer, Chief Economist and Vice-President, The World Bank

10:45-11:00 AM Coffee Break

11:00 AM-12:30 PM Session 1: Land

Chair: Horacio Terraza, Lead Urban Specialist for the Latin American Region, The World Bank

11:00-11:20 AM Mini keynote (Video): “Land in the Urban Development Agenda,” Harris Selod, Development Research Group at The World Bank

11:20-11:40 AM Paper 1.1 (Video) “Building the City: Sunk Capital, Sequencing, and Institutional Frictions,” Anthony Venables (University of Oxford), joint with

Vernon Henderson (LSE) and Tanner Regan (LSE)

11:40-12:00 PM Paper 1.2 “On the Determinants of Slum Formation,” Daniel da Mata (IPEA), joint with Tiago Cavalcanti (University of Cambridge) and Marcelo

Santos (IIER)

12:00-12:15 PM Discussion (Video): Alain Bertaud, NYU Urbanization Project

12:15-12:30 PM Q&A

12:30-1:30 PM Lunch

1:30-2:15 PM Keynote Addresses: Cities, Growth, and Planning

Paul Romer, Chief Economist and Vice-President, The World Bank

Chair: Phil Hay, Communication Adviser, Development Economics, The World Bank

2:15-3:45 PM Session 2: Transportation

Chair: Marianne Fay, Chief Economist, Sustainable Development Vice-Presidency, The World Bank

2:15-2:35 PM Mini keynote (Video): “Transport Infrastructure in the Urban Development Agenda,” Somik Lall, The World Bank

2:35-2:55 PM Paper 2.1 (Video) “Congestion in Bogota,” Gilles Duranton (Wharton Business School)

2:55-3:15 PM Paper 2.2 “Subways and Urban Air Pollution,” Matthew Turner (Brown University)

3:15-3:30 PM Discussion (Video): Leah Brooks, George Washington University

3:30-3:45 PM Q&A

3:45-4:00 PM Coffee Break

4:00-5:30 PM Session 3: Public Services

Chair: Michael Toman, Research Manager, Energy and Environment, Development Research Group, The World Bank

4:00-4:20 PM Mini keynote (Video): “Urban Sanitation in the Urban Development Agenda,” Rémi Jedwab (George Washington University)

4:20-4:40 PM Paper 3.1 (Video) “Financing Sewers in the 19th Century’s Largest Cities: A Prequel for African Cities?,” Robert Buckley (The Urban Institute)

4:40-5:00 PM Paper 3.2 “Water, Health, and Wealth,” Ed Glaeser (Harvard University), with Nava Ashraf, Abraham Holland, and Bryce Steinberg

5:00-5:15 PM Discussion (Video): Maisy Wong (The Wharton School)

5:15-5:30 PM Q&A

6:00-7:30 PM Cocktail Reception and Welcome Speech by Maggie Chen (George Washington University)

At the George Washington University, Lindner Commons Room (6th Floor) of the Elliott School of International Affairs, 1957 E St. N.W. (at the intersection of E and

19th Streets, on E Street), Washington, DC

5th Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, May 5, 2017

This year’s conference is hosted by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

The Mercatus Center
Founders Hall, Room 113
3351 Fairfax Dr., Arlington VA 22201

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

View the Schedule

Download the conference schedule here.

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

IMF Africa Regional Economic Outlook

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

9:00am to 12:00pm

 

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

Africa continues to experience great opportunities for growth while also facing several great challenges. Sustained economic growth, income inequality, gender disparities, and competitiveness in the global trade arena are all issues with the potential to make or break the continent’s development as a region. The African Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) publishes the Regional Economic Outlook (REO): Sub-Saharan Africa report twice a year. Review the latest report here.

 

Panel I: Multispeed Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

  • IMF Presenter: Jesus Gonzalez-Garcia
  • Discussants: Temesgen Deressa and Marcus King

Panel II: Exchange Rate Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa: Experiences and Lessons

  • IMF Presenter: Haris Tsangarides
  • Discussants: Ajay Chhibber, Steve Suranovic, and Kingsley Moghalu

Poverty in India: Issues and Policies

S. Mahendra Dev 

Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research

International Economic Policy Forum

Co-hosted by the International Tax and Investment Center and the GW Department of Economics

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

12:30 pm to 2:00 pm

 

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

 

Please find the presentation from Prof. Smith here, and Prof. Dev here.

S. Mahendra Dev is the director (Vice Chancellor) of the Indira Ghandi Institute of Develpment and Research (IGIDR). He previously served as the chair of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices of the Government of India. He also worked as director at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, and as senior fellow at the Rajiv Ghandi Foundation. He has written extensively on topics such as agricultural development, food security, and poverty and public policy. He received his PhD from the Delhi School of Economics and completed postdoctoral research at Yale University’s Economic Growth Center.

Prof. Dev has more than 100 research publications in national and international journals. Oxford University Press has recently published his book  Inclusive Growth in India. He has been a consultant and adviser to many international organizations, such as UNDP, World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute, ILO, FAO, and ESCAP. He also conducted collaborative projects with IFPRI on food security and poverty. He has been a member of several government committees including the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Employment and Rangarajan Commission on Financial Inclusion.

S. Mahendra Dev

Vietnam 2035: Toward Prosperity, Creativity, Equity, and Democracy

Bui Quang Vinh

Former Vietnam Minister of Planning and Investment

Watch the event in English:

Watch the event in Vietnamese

Tuesday, November 1, 2017

2:00 to 3:30pm

Elliott School of International Affairs
City View Room, 7th Floor
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Download the presentation here.

Bui Quang Vinh

Countries rarely think and act long-term. The next election cycle is as far as politicians’ horizons typically extend. Vietnam has chosen a bolder, more successful approach, starting with the Đổi Mới (economic renovation) reforms in the late 1980s. Visionary leaders and a sense of shared societal purpose have allowed it a longer-term and calibrated focus on the future. Economic growth as a result has been rapid, stable, and inclusive, translating into strong welfare gains for the vast majority of the population.

But three decades of success from reforms have raised expectations for the future, especially for a young, rapidly urbanizing population that is fast joining the ranks of the global middle class. The Vietnamese people now aspire to be a modern and industrialized country, with a prosperous, creative, equitable, and democratic society.

The Vietnam 2035 report, a joint undertaking of the Government of Vietnam and the World Bank Group, captures the country’s long-term aspirations and fleshes out the supporting policy and institutional agenda. The aspirations and the reform agenda, the report argues, stand on three mutually reinforcing pillars: balancing economic prosperity with environmental sustainability; promoting equity and social inclusion to develop a harmonious middle- class society; and enhancing the capacity and accountability of the state to establish a rule of law state and a democratic society.

Minister Bui Quang Vinh, an experienced, outspoken, and highly-regarded leader within the Vietnamese political system, a strong proponent of bold institutional reform, and at the time Minister of Planning and Investment, was a guiding force behind the writing of the Vietnam 2035 report.

In this seminar, he will talk about why his government sought a long-term vision report, what made the World Bank the partner of choice, what he sees as the report’s main messages, and what now are the political economy challenges that stand in the way of implementing the report’s recommendations.

Mr. Bui Quang Vinh served as Vietnam’s Minister of Planning and Investment from 2011 – 2015. The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is responsible for preparation of Vietnam’s development strategies and plans, public investment planning, some aspects of SOE reforms, poverty reduction, and oversight and coordination of ODA. Mr. Vinh was also a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam’s Communist Party and of Vietnam’s 13th National Assembly.  He served as MPI’s Vice Minister from 2010 – 2011.  During 1999-2010 he was Chairman and Party Secretary of Vietnam’s Lao Cai Province, one of Vietnam’s poorest provinces located in the northern part of the country.  He previously held various other positions there and in the old Hoan Lien Son Province. Born in Hanoi in 1953, the Minister earned an engineering degree from Vietnam’s University of Agriculture in 1975 and studied at the Agriculture Economic Institute in Moscow.

Stephen Smith, IIEP Director, will serve as Chair and Danny Leipziger, Growth Dialogue Managing Director, as a discussant for this forum.

Inclusive and Sustainable Growth in India: Policy Challenges and Prospects

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

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

Click here to access the morning speakers

Click here to access the afternoon speakers

Click here to access all other remarks

To prepare for the future, India emphasizes addressing inclusive and sustainable growth, eliminating poverty, and expanding their urban sphere. The growth-orientated government faces challenges in creating efficient policy reforms to fit their agenda. Issues including poverty, inequality, lack of infrastructure, and an unfinished plan for reform limit the country’s tremendous growth prospects.

How can India utilize macro economic policy for faster growth? What additional policies are needed to boost infrastructure and urbanization? How is India responding to climate change and sustainability? How can revised policy and programs aid in eradicating poverty?

The Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs and India’s National Institute of Public Finance and Policy hosted a conversation with top academic researchers, officials from the IMF, NIPFP, and World Bank, and current and former advisors of the Indian governments.

View the Schedule
8:30 – 9:00AM: Continental Breakfast
9:00 – 10:00AM: Opening Session
  • Welcome Address
    • Ambassador Reuben Brigety, Dean of the Elliott School
  • Key Note Address: “India’s Reform Challenges and Unfinished Reform Agenda”
    • Arvind Subramaniam, Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India 
10:00 – 11:15AM: Session I – “Macro Economic Policy for Faster Growth”
  • Chair: Dr. Ajay Chhibber, IIEP & NIPFP
  • Dr. Subir Gokarn, Exective Director, India IMF
  • Dr. Rathin Roy,  Director, NIPFP, “A Macro-Fiscal Snapshot
11:15 – 11:30AM: Coffee Break
11:30AM – 1:00PM: Session II – “India’s Commitment to Climate Change and Sustainable Growth”
1:00 – 2:00PM: Lunch: Luncheon Address
  • Dr. Junaid Kamal Ahmad, Country Director, India, World Bank 
2:00 – 3:15PM: Session III – “Infrastructure and Urban Drivers of Growth”
3:15 – 3:30PM: Coffee Break
3:30 – 4:45PM: Session IV – “Equitable Growth and Poverty Eradication: Measurement, Programs, and Policies”
4:45 – 5:30PM: Closing Address: “Getting India back to the Growth Turnpike: What will it take?
  • Dr. Rakesh Mohan, Yale University, and former Executive Director, India, IMF 
  • Dr. Ajay ChhibberIIEP & NIPFP

Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Interventions on Migration and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Quasi-Random Child Health and Family Planning Program in Bangladesh

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Economics and Political Economy of Africa

Thursday, April 28, 2016

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

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University, this conference brings together scholars to discuss important new research on the political economy and economics of sub-Saharan Africa. The core organizers are Remi Jedwab (ESIA and Department of Economics at GWU) and Eric Kramon (ESIA And Department of Political Science at GWU). Faculty presenters include Richard Akresh, Jenny Aker, Pascaline Dupas, Evan Lieberman, Edward Miguel, Ameet Morjaria, Nathan Nunn, and Leonard Wantchekon.

Core Organizers

Rémi Jedwab, Assistant Professor of Economics

Rémi Jedwab is an assistant professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Elliott School and the Department of Economics of George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Paris School of Economics. He was also a visiting Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics for three years. Professor Jedwab’s main field of research is urban economics, though his work also has strong development economics, public economics/political economy and economic history themes. Some of the issues he has studied include urbanization and structural transformation, the economic effects of transportation infrastructure, and agricultural and economic development in Africa. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal and the Journal of Economic Growth. Recently, Professor Jedwab research areas have included the phenomenon of urbanization without economic growth, and his research has been highlighted by The Atlantic’s CityLab and the Boston Globe.

Eric Kramon, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

Professor Kramon’s research focuses on barriers to accountability and good governance in developing democracies, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. His current book project examines the causes and consequences of vote buying during African elections. Other projects investigate the role of election observation in promoting electoral quality; ethnicity and the politics of public goods provision; and the determinants of ethnic voting.

 

Speakers and Discussants

Keynote Speakers

 

Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety II, The George Washington University

Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety II most recently served as the appointed Representative of the United States of America to the African Union and Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN Economic Commission for Africa on September 3, 2013. Prior to this appointment, Ambassador Brigety served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of African Affairs from November 14, 2011 until September 3, 2013 with responsibility for Southern African and Regional Security Affairs.

From December 2009 to November 2011, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. In this capacity, he supervised U.S. refugee programs in Africa, managed U.S. humanitarian diplomacy with major international partners, and oversaw the development of international migration policy.

A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Ambassador Brigety previously served as Director of the Sustainable Security Program at the Center for American Progress from January 2008 to November 2009 and as a Special Assistant in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development from January 2007 to January 2008. From November 2008 to January 2009, he also served as a senior advisor for Development and Security to the U.S. Central Command Assessment Team in Washington and in Doha, Qatar.

Ambassador Brigety is a 1995 distinguished midshipman graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned a B.S. in political science (with merit), served as the Brigade Commander and received the Thomas G. Pownall Scholarship. He also holds an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Cambridge, England. Ambassador Brigety is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a recipient of the Council’s International Affairs Fellowship.

Edward Miguel, UC Berkeley

Edward Miguel is the Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics and Faculty Director of the Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 2000. He earned S.B. degrees in both Economics and Mathematics from MIT, received a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow, and has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and Stanford University. Ted’s main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; interactions between health, education, environment, and productivity for the poor; and methods for transparency in social science research. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India. Ted is a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, has served as Associate Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Development Economics, is a recipient of the 2005 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and winner of the 2005 Kenneth J. Arrow Prize awarded annually by the International Health Economics Association for the Best Paper in Health Economics.

He co-founded the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) in 2007 and serves as Faculty Director. He has served as the Co-organizer (with Dan Posner of UCLA) of theWorklng Group in African Political Economy (WGAPE) since 2002. Ted is also the co-founder and Faculty Director of the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS).

Miguel has written two books, Africa’s Turn? (MIT Press 2009), and, with Ray Fisman, Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations(Princeton University Press 2008). Economic Gangsters has been translated into ten languages, and the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof praises it as “smart and eminently readable”. Miguel’s other writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Forbes, and the New York Times.

Leonard Wantchekon, Princeton University & African School of Economics

Wantchekon is Professor in the Politics department and Woodrow Wilson School, and associated faculty in the Economics department at Princeton University. His research is broadly focused on political and economic development, particularly in Africa. His specific interests include the political economy of infrastructure provision, education and human capital externalities, democratization, clientelism and redistributive politics, the resource curse, and the long-term social impact of historical events. He is the author of numerous publications in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal pf Economics, the American Political Science Review, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the journal of Law, Economics and Organization and, World Politics. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the founder the African School of Economics (ASE), which opened in Benin in September 2014.

Speakers

Jenny C. Aker, Tufts University

Jenny C. Aker is an Associate Professor of Development Economics at the Fletcher School and Department of Economics at Tufts University. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development , a member of the Advisory Board for CDA, Frontline SMS and the Boston Network for International Development (BNID) . She also serves as the Deputy Director of the Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs and is the Interim Director for the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP). After working for Catholic Relief Services as Deputy Regional Director in West and Central Africa between 1998 and 2003, Jenny completed her PhD in agricultural economics at the University of California-Berkeley. Jenny works on economic development in Africa, with a primary focus on the impact of information (and information technology) on development outcomes, particularly in the areas of agriculture, agricultural markets, adult education and financial inclusion; the determinants and impacts of agricultural technology adoption; and the impact of different mechanisms and modalities of social protection (cash and in-kind transfers). Jenny has conducted field work in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, DRC, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Tanzania, as well as Haiti and Guatemala.

Richard Akresh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Richard Akresh is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 2004. His research focuses on child health and education in Africa and spans the fields of development, health, and labor economics. He has explored the impact of conflict on human capital and health investments for young children as well as the long-term consequences of exposure to war as a child. He has studied how household structure and sibling rivalry impact households’ decisions concerning educational investments in their children. He has conducted randomized control trials of alternative ways to deliver cash transfers to poor households in Africa to improve child health and education. He is also interested in questions about child labor, migration, and intra-household bargaining. He is a Research Associate of the NBER, a BREAD Research Affiliate, a Research Fellow at IZA, and a Senior Affiliate at HiCN.

Eric Kramon, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

Professor Kramon’s research focuses on barriers to accountability and good governance in developing democracies, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. His current book project examines the causes and consequences of vote buying during African elections. Other projects investigate the role of election observation in promoting electoral quality; ethnicity and the politics of public goods provision; and the determinants of ethnic voting.

 

Evan S. Lieberman, MIT

Evan Lieberman is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT. Previously, Lieberman was a member of the faculty at Princeton University for 12 years, and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA from Princeton. Lieberman’s research is concerned with understanding the determinants of good governance and policy-making, and the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. He also writes and teaches on research methods for comparative analysis. Lieberman is the author of two scholarly books, Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation (Cambridge 2003) and Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to AIDS (Princeton 2009) and numerous scholarly articles that have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, Social Science and Medicine, and other journals. He received the David Collier mid-career achievement award at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Lieberman serves on the board of directors of the Southern African Legal Services Foundation, the international advisory board of the African School of Economics, and is a member of the egap network.

Ameet Morjaria, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Ameet Morjaria is an Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Prior to joining Kellogg in 2015, he was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs and a Giorgio Ruffolo Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at the Centre for International Development, Harvard Kennedy School. He completed his PhD in Economics at the London School of Economics. His research interests are in development economics, organizations and political economy. His current research focuses on understanding the impact of competition on productivity and relational contracts, industrial policy in developing countries, the impact of electoral conflict on firm operations, and the political economy of resource management in weak democracies. He has consulted for the World Bank, Kaiser Associates and prior to graduate school worked in investment banking at Deutsche Bank.

Nathan Nunn, Harvard University

Nathan Nunn is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Nunn was born in Canada, where he received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2005. Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in economic history, economic development, cultural economics, political economy and international trade. He is an NBER Faculty Research Fellow, a Research Fellow at BREAD, and a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA). He is currently a co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. One stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the long-term impact that historic events have on current economic development. In particular, he has studied how history shapes the evolution of institutions and cultures across societies. He has published research empirically examining the historical foundations of current outcomes such as distrust, gender norms, religion, and support for democracy. A second stream of Professor Nunn’s research examines economic development in a contemporary context. He has published research examining the effects of Fair Trade certification, CIA interventions, industrial policy, and foreign aid. A third stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the importance of contracting institutions for international trade. He has published research showing that a country’s ability to enforce written contracts is a key determinant of comparative advantage, as well as research examining how contracting frictions affects firms decision to engage in FDI versus outsourcing.

Rebecca Thornton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Rebecca Thornton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Prior to that, Dr. Thornton was in the Department of Economics and a Research Affiliate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. Dr. Thornton completed her PhD in Political Economy and Government with a joint degree from the Harvard University Economics Department and the J.F. Kennedy School of Government in 2006. She was an NIA post-doc from 2006 to 2008 at the University of Michigan Population Studies Center. Her research focuses on health and education in developing countries including topics such as HIV prevention, reproductive health, primary education, and social networks. Dr. Thornton is an affiliate with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) whose main aims are to use experimental methods to translate research into policy action and alleviate poverty in the developing world. She is also a junior affiliate in BREAD (Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development).

Discussants

 

Sarah Baird, The George Washington University

Sarah Baird is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Economics in the Department of Global Health. She is also an Affiliated Faculty at The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at the Elliot School of International Affairs. Dr. Baird is a development economist whose research focuses on the microeconomics of health and education in developing countries with an emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. She has worked on areas as diverse as the schooling and health of young women in Malawi, community-driven development in Tanzania, deworming in Kenya, and global infant mortality. She received her Ph.D. in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley in 2007.

Markus Goldstein, The World Bank

Markus Goldstein is a development economist with experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. He is currently a Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Africa at the World Bank, where he leads the Gender Innovation Lab. His current research centers on issues of gender and economic activity, focusing on agriculture and small scale enterprises. He is currently involved in a number of impact evaluations on these topics across Africa. Markus has taught at the London School of Economics, the University of Ghana, Legon, and Georgetown University. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

James Habyarimana, Georgetown University

James Habyarimana joined the McCourt School Public Policy in 2004 after completing doctoral studies at Harvard University. His main research interests are in Development Economics and Political Economy. In particular he is interested in understanding the issues and constraints in health, education and the private sectors in developing countries. In health he is working on understanding the impact of policy responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and evaluating a number of health improving interventions in road safety and water, sanitation and hygiene. In education, his work focuses on identifying programs and policies to improve access and quality of secondary schooling. His primary regional focus is Africa. He has been a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development. At the McCourt School, James teaches the second course in regression methods and courses on the history of development and education and health policy in developing countries.

Adrienne LeBas, American University

Adrienne LeBas (PhD, Columbia University) joined the Department of Government in the fall of 2009. Prior to joining AU, LeBas was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and Assistant Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University. Her research interests include social movements, democratization, and political violence. She is the author of the award-winning From Protest to Parties: Party-Building and Democratization in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011) and articles in the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Democracy, Comparative Politics, and elsewhere. LeBas also worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe, where she lived from 2002 to 2003. Her most recent work looks at attitudes toward taxation in urban Nigeria. During the 2015-2016 academic year, LeBas will be a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. She will be working on her second book, which investigates the reasons for persistent election violence in some democratizing countries.

Kenneth Leonard, University of Maryland

Kenneth Leonard is an associate professor in the department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, specializing in the delivery of public services to rural populations in Africa. He has lived and worked in several African countries, including Cameroun, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Liberia. His work has highlighted the important roles played by both traditional healers and nongovernmental organizations in the delivery of health care as well as the ways that social networks within communities help individuals to make better decisions.

 

 

John McCauley, University of Maryland

Dr. McCauley is an Assistant Professor of Government and Politics. His research focuses on ethnic and religious conflict, economic development, and informal political institutions in Africa. He has published articles on these topics in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Political Psychology, and Political Science Research and Methods, among others. His book manuscript, The Logic of Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa, is currently under review. Dr. McCauley received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010. He has a B.A. in Economics from the College of William & Mary and an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University. Prior to joining the faculty at Maryland, he was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In addition to his research, Dr. McCauley teaches courses on the Politics of the Developing World, African Politics, Field Research Methods, and Religion and Politics around the World. In 2013, he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching award from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Mũthoni Ngatia, Tufts University

Mũthoni Ngatia is an assistant professor of Economics at Tufts University. She is currently on sabbatical at the World Bank. Her research has looked at how social networks affect individuals’ behaviour in developing countries. She has an A.B. in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. Mũthoni is the recipient of grants from J-PAL, PEDL, Kilimo Trust, and The Russell Sage Foundation among others.

 

Ken Opalo, Georgetown University

Ken Opalo is an Assistant Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His research interests include the political economy of development; legislative development; and electoral politics in emerging democracies. Ken’s current book project examines the evolution of legislatures in emerging democracies, with a focus on explaining the observed variation in the institutionalization and strength of African legislatures.

Session Chairs

 

Derick Brinkerhoff, The George Washington University & RTI

Dr. Derick W. Brinkerhoff is Distinguished Fellow in International Public Management with RTI International (Research Triangle Institute) and is an associate faculty member at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. His research and consulting focuses on policy implementation, democracy and governance, decentralization, citizen participation, social accountability, partnerships, and fragile conflict-affected states. He has worked with international donors, public sector agencies, NGOs, and the US military across a broad range of development sectors in 30 countries, with a long-term focus on the health sector. From 1990-2001, he was research director of USAID’s Implementing Policy Change project. Dr. Brinkerhoff is a co-editor for the journal, Public Administration and Development; and serves on the editorial board of International Review of Administrative Sciences. He is the co-chair of the governance work group of the Society for International Development’s Washington DC chapter. He has published extensively, including eight books and numerous articles and book chapters. He holds a doctorate in public policy and administration from Harvard University and a masters in public administration from the University of California, Riverside. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Jennifer Brinkerhoff, The George Washington University

Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff is Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the George Washington University. She holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and an MPA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She teaches courses on public service, international development policy and administration, development management, and organizational behavior. She is particularly keen on encouraging people to pursue service careers, thoughtfully grounding their commitment to change in self-awareness and working in communities. To that end, she and her husband, Derick W. Brinkerhoff, published Working for Change: Making a Career in International Public Service (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2005). Dr. Brinkerhoff has expertise on public-private partnership, governance, NGOs, development management, and diasporas. Her publications include seven books, as well as four co-edited journal issues and over fifty articles and book chapters on topics ranging from institutional reform, to evaluation; NGOs; failed states; governance; and diaspora identity, development contributions, citizenship, and policy. She is the author of Institutional Reform and Diaspora Entrepreneurs: The In-Between Advantage (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2016), Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Partnership for International Development: Rhetoric or Results? (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002); and co-editor of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007). Dr. Brinkerhoff consults for multilateral development banks, bilateral assistance agencies, NGOs, and foundations. Her applied work encompasses partnership, civil society, institutional development, development management, and training methodologies, and includes work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands; and in Africa, China, Mongolia, Central Asia, and Russia for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank. She has provided policy advice to the U.S. State Department on its diaspora engagement strategy and conducted diaspora-related commissioned research for USAID, the Asia Development Bank, the Migration Policy Institute, the Nordic Africa Institute, the United Nations, and the World Bank. She has also advised studies for the Africa Diaspora Policy Centre, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She has delivered training related to diasporas and development to U.S. State Department Foreign Service and Desk Officers, USAID staff, international development consulting firms, and diaspora organizations and other government officials in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Sweden.

James Foster, The George Washington University

James E. Foster is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and holds a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo (Mexico).

Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in México. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu. Foster regularly teaches introductory and doctoral courses on international development and each spring joins with Professor Basu in presenting an undergraduate course on Game Theory and Strategic Thinking, to which staff and Board members of the World Bank are also invited.

Professor Foster is also Research Fellow at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Department of International Development, Oxford University, and a member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Working Group, Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, University of Chicago. This year he is serving on the World Bank’s Commission on Global Poverty.

Stephen Smith, The George Washington University

Stephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy. He received his PhD in economics from Cornell University and has been a Fulbright Research Scholar, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Jean Monnet Research Fellow; he is currently a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, an IZA Research Fellow, and a member of the Advisory Council of BRAC USA. He is Principal Investigator for the research project, “Complementarities of Training, Technology, and Credit in Smallholder Agriculture: Impact, Sustainability, and Policy for Scaling-up in Senegal and Uganda,” funded by BASIS / USAID. From 2009-2012, Smith served a previous term as Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy, where he helped create its four signature initiatives: climate adaptation in developing countries; extreme poverty; global economic governance; and the “G2 at GW” series. In the 1990s, he designed and served as first director of GW’s International Development Studies Program. From 2004-2008, he served as co-Principal Investigator, along with Prof. Jim Williams, of GW’s partnership with BRAC University (in Bangladesh). Professor Smith has also served as director of the Research Program in Poverty, Development, and Globalization.directs the Research Program in Poverty, Development, and Globalization. Smith has done on-site research and program work in several regions of the developing world including Bangladesh, China, Ecuador, India, Uganda, and Former Yugoslavia, and has been a consultant for the World Bank, the International Labour Office (ILO, Geneva), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Institute for Development Economics Research (UN-WIDER, Helsinki). Smith has also conducted extensive research on the economics of employee participation, including works councils, ESOPs, and labor cooperatives, which has included on-site research in Italy, Spain, and Germany, as well as China and India.

Tentative Schedule for Economics and Political Economy of Africa

Lindner Commons, 1957 E St. NW, 6th floor

8:30 – 9:10AM: Breakfast and Welcome

  • 8:30 – 9:00AM: Breakfast
  • 9:00 – 9:10AM: Welcome

9:10 – 10:50AM: Session I

 Chair: Stephen Smith, Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University

Discussant: Adrienne Lebas (American University)

Discussant: Muthoni Ngatia (Tufts University)

10:50 – 11:00AM: Coffee Break

11:00 – 12:40PM: Session II

 Chair: James Foster (George Washington University)

    • 11:00 – 11:50AM: Child Labor, Schooling, and Child AbilityRichard Akresh (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), joint with Emilie Bagby (UIUC), Damien de Walque (World Bank), and Harounan Kazianga (Oklahoma).

Discussant: Sarah Baird (George Washington University)

Discussant: Markus Goldstein (The World Bank)

12:40 – 1:50PM: Lunch

1:50 – 3:30PM: Session III

 Chair: Jennifer Brinkerhoff (George Washington University)

    • 1:50 – 2:40PM: Bride Price and Female EducationNathan Nunn (Harvard University), joint with Nava Ashraf (LSE), Natalie Bau (Toronto), and Alessandra Voena (Chicago).

Discussant: Kenneth Leonard (University of Maryland)

Discussant: James Habyarimana (Georgetown University)

3:30 – 3:50PM: Coffee Break

3:50 – 5:30PM: Session IV

 Chair: Derick Brinkerhoff (George Washington University & RTI)

Discussant: John McCauley (University of Maryland)

Discussant: Ken Opalo (Georgetown University)

5:30 – 5:50PM: Coffee Break

5:50 – 7:00PM: Keynote Speakers

  • 5:50 – 6:00PM: Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety II, Dean, The Elliott School of International Affairs
  • 6:00 – 6:10PM: Presentation of the African School of Economics. Leonard Wantchekon, African School of Economics and Princeton University
  • 6:10 – 7:00PM: Prospects for Rural Electrification in Africa. Edward Miguel, UC Berkeley

7:00 – 8:30PM: Reception with African Beer and Wine

4th Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 8, 2016

Elliott School for International Affairs
1957 E St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20052

 

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

Measuring Poverty’s depth and breadth, and shared prosperity: The World Bank/IMF Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016

8:30 – 9:00 AM: Breakfast and Registration

9:00 – 9:15 AMOpening Remarks

  • Forrest Maltzman, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, GWU
  • M. Ayhan Kose, Director, Development Prospects Group, World Bank

9:15 – 9:35 AM: Overview of Global Monitoring Report

  • Philip Schellekens, Lead Author and Manager of the Global Monitoring Report, and Lead Economist in the Prospects Group, World Bank

9:35 – 10:30AM: Session 1: Depth of Poverty

  • Stephen C. Smith, Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy, GWU
  • Discussant: Francisco Ferreira, Senior Adviser, Development Research Group, World Bank

10:30 – 10:50AM: Break with a View

10:50 – 11:45AM: Session 2: Breadth of Poverty

  • Sabina Alkire, Professor of Economics and International Affairs, GWU; and Director, Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
  • Discussant: Joao Pedro Azevedo, Lead Economist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank

11:45AM – 12:40PM: Session 3: Shared Prosperity

  • Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva, co-Director of the World Development Report (WDR) 2017; Lead Economist, Poverty Global Practice, World Bank
  • Discussant: Danny Leipziger, Professor of International Business, GWU

12:40 – 1:30PM : Wrap-up and Lunch

  • James Foster, Professor of Economics and International Affairs, GWU; and External Advisor, Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016

Third Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

This conference hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy), the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, the NYU Urbanization Project, and The Growth Dialogue brings together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss the challenges of sustainable urbanization in developing countries.

Addressing environmental change in urban areas is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, particularly given that the world is now more than half urban, and Africa and Asia are experiencing unprecedented rates of urban population growth. Cities themselves are a major contributor to this challenge, as they consume an enormous share of the world’s energy and emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. At the same time, they are heavily vulnerable to climate change and increasingly exposed to climate induced risks (including floods from rising sea levels and higher precipitation, destruction from stronger cyclones and storms, and periods of extreme heat and cold). The phenomenon of urbanization itself is also likely to be significantly altered by environmentally induced migration. Despite these risks, many cities have not created or implemented crucially needed policies to attenuate the causes of climate change and to effectively protect cities from its impacts.

Rémi Jedwab, Assistant Professor of Economics

Rémi Jedwab is an assistant professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Elliott School and the Department of Economics of George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Paris School of Economics. He was also a visiting Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics for three years. Professor Jedwab’s main field of research is urban economics, though his work also has strong development economics, public economics/political economy and economic history themes. Some of the issues he has studied include urbanization and structural transformation, the economic effects of transportation infrastructure, and agricultural and economic development in Africa. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal and the Journal of Economic Growth. Recently, Professor Jedwab research areas have included the phenomenon of urbanization without economic growth, and his research has been highlighted by The Atlantic’s CityLab and the Boston Globe.

 

Danny M. Leipziger, Professor of International Business, GWU and Managing Director, The Growth Dialogue

Danny Leipziger is Professor of International Business, George Washington University, Managing Director, the Growth Dialogue, and an IIEP affiliate faculty member. He is former Vice President of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network (2004–09) at the World Bank. Over the course of his 28-year career at the World Bank, he has held management positions in the East Asia Region and the Latin America and Caribbean Region as well as in the World Bank Institute. Prior to joining the Bank, Dr. Leipziger served in senior positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State. He also has been a Vice Chair of the independent Commission on Growth and Development (2006-2010). He has published widely on topics of development economics and finance, industrial policy, and banking, including books on Korea, Chile, and East Asia and recent volumes Globalization and Growth (with Michael Spence) and Stuck in the Middle (with Antonio Estache) and the most recent – Ascent after Decline: Regrowing Global Economies after the Great Recession (with Otaviano Canuto).

 

Paul Romer, Professor of Economics, NYU Stern School of Business and Director of the Urbanization Project

Paul Romer, an economist and policy entrepreneur, is University Professor at NYU and director of the Marron Institute of Urban Management. He is also the founding director of the Urbanization Project at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project. The Urbanization Project conducts applied research on the many ways in which policymakers in the developing world can use the rapid growth of cities to create economic opportunity and undertake systemic social reform. Before coming to NYU, Paul taught at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. While there, Paul took an entrepreneurial detour to start Aplia, an education technology company dedicated to increasing student effort and classroom engagement. Paul serves on the board of trustees for the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching. He is also a member of the board of directors for Community Solutions, a national not-for-profit dedicated to strengthening communities and ending homelessness. In 2002, he received the Recktenwald Prize for his work on the role of ideas in sustaining economic growth.

 

Harris Selod, Senior Economist, The World Bank

Harris Selod is a Senior Economist with the Development Research Group of the World Bank. His current research focuses on urban development, including issues related to transport and land use, as well as land tenure, land markets and the political economy of the land sector in developing countries, with a specific interest in West Africa. His publications cover a variety of topics in urban and public economics including theories of squatting and residential informality, the political economy of transport infrastructure, the effects of residential segregation on schooling and unemployment, or the impact of land rights formalization and place-based policies. He has been chair of the World Bank’s Land Policy and Administration Thematic Group (2011-2013) and is currently leading a World Bank research program on transp

 

Keynote Speakers

Jan K. Brueckner

Professor of Economics, University of California-Irvine

Jan K. Brueckner (AB, UC Berkeley; PhD, Stanford University) was long- time faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before coming to UCI in 2005. Brueckner has published extensively in the reas of urban economics, public economics, housing finance, and the economics of the airline industry, with more than 125 journal articles to his credit. He is also author of an innovative new textbook, Lectures on Urban Economics (MIT Press, 2011). Brueckner served as editor of the Journal of Urban Economics for 16 years and is currently a member of the editorial boards of 6 journals. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank, many of the major airlines, and other organizations.

Matthew Kahn

Professor, UCLA Institute of the Environment, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Public Policy

Matthew E. Kahn is a Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Public Policy. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Before joining the UCLA faculty in January 2007, he taught at Columbia and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment (Brookings Institution Press 2006) and the co-author of Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War (Princeton University Press 2009). His research focuses on environmental, urban, real estate and energy economics.

Chairs and Panelists

Kaushik Basu

Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank

Kaushik Basu is Senior Vice President (Development Economics) and Chief Economist of the World Bank. Prior to this, he served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and is currently on leave from Cornell University where he is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies. Mr. Basu is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and received India’s Padma Bhushan award as well as the National Mahalanobis Memorial award. Mr. Basu’s contributions span development economics, welfare economics, industrial organization and game theory.

Michael Cohen

Director, Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy

Michael Cohen is an urban and development policy specialist. He worked at the World Bank from 1972 to 1999 and was responsible for much of the bank’s urban policy development during that period. Mr. Cohen has worked in 55 countries and was heavily involved in the World Bank’s work on infrastructure, environment, and sustainable development. His numerous published works include several books on urban development, Africa, and the impact of development assistance. Mr. Cohen has advised governments, NGOs, and academic institutions around the world. He was a member of the Infrastructure Panel and Urban Dynamics Panel of the US National Academy of Science. He has helped the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) prepare its Global Report on Human Settlements in 2005-2012. He is currently the director of The New School’s Observatory on Latin America.

Maureen Cropper

Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics, University of Maryland

Maureen Cropper is a Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future and former Lead Economist in the Research Department of the World Bank. Dr. Cropper has served as chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board’s Environmental Economics Advisory Committee, and as past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Maureen is currently serving as co-Director of the National Academy of Sciences study on Assessing Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research interests include valuing environmental amenities and the tradeoffs implicit in environmental regulations, including energy regulations. Her current research focuses on energy efficiency in India and the impact of climate change on migration. Maureen received her Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University in 1973.

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt

Director of Research, Development Economics, World Bank

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt is the Director of Research in the World Bank. After joining the Bank in 1989 as a Young Economist, she has held different positions, including Director of Development Policy, Chief Economist of Financial and Private Sector Development Network, and Senior Research Manager, doing research and advising on financial sector and private sector development issues. She is the lead author of World Bank Policy Research Report 2007, Finance for All? Policies and Pitfalls in Expanding Access. She has also created the World Bank’s Global Financial Development Report and directed the issues on Rethinking the Role of the State in Finance (2013), and Financial Inclusion (2014).

Marianne Fay

Chief Economist, Sustainable Development Vice-Presidency, World Bank Group

Marianne Fay is the Chief Economist of the Climate Change Cross Cutting Solutions Area of the World Bank. She co-directed the World Development Report 2010 on Development and Climate Change and led the World Bank report on Inclusive Green growth: the Pathway to Sustainable Development. She has held positions in different regions of the World Bank (Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa) working on infrastructure, urbanization and climate change. Prior to her current position, she served as the Chief Economist of the former Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank. She is the author of a number of articles and books on these topics. Marianne Fay holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University.

Stephen Hammer

Manager, Climate Change Group, the World Bank

Stephen Hammer joined the World Bank’s Urban Development and Resilience Unit as a Lead Urban Specialist in February 2013, leading the team’s work on cities and climate change issues. He has more than 25 years of government, consulting, and academic experience on energy, environmental, solid waste, and climate change topics. Prior to joining the Bank he was on the faculty at MIT, where he taught a range of courses on energy policy and planning. He previously founded the Urban Energy Program at Columbia University, where he focused on the policy, market, and regulatory environment of urban energy systems; how climate change will affect urban and regional energy systems; and the modeling of energy demand in cities. He also co-founded and served as co-Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), a global network of researchers examining climate change from an urban perspective, and he co-edited the UCCRN’s 2011 volume Climate Change and Cities, published by Cambridge University Press. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the academic journals Urban Climate and Local Environment. Dr. Hammer holds degrees from the London School of Economics, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the University of California at Davis.

Stephen C. Smith

Professor of Economics and International Affairs, George Washington University and Director, Institute for International Economic Policy

Stephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. Smith received his PhD in economics from Cornell University and has been a Fulbright Research Scholar and a Jean Monnet Research Fellow. Smith is also an IZA Research Fellow. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. From 2009-2012, Smith served as Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy, where he helped create its four signature initiatives: climate adaptation in developing countries; extreme poverty; global economic governance; and the “G2 at GW” series. Smith has done on-site research and program work in several regions of the developing world including Bangladesh, China, Ecuador, India, Uganda, and Former Yugoslavia. Smith has also conducted extensive research on the economics of employee participation, including works councils, ESOPs, and labor cooperatives in developed and developing countries.

Sameh Wahba

Practice Manager, Urban, Rural and Social Development, World Bank

Sameh Wahba is Sector Manager, Urban Development and Resilience Unit, World Bank, where he is responsible for the Bank’s urban policy, strategy, and analytics at the global level. Prior to this position, Wahba was the Brazil Sector Leader of the Sustainable Development Department at the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Region, where he was responsible for coordinating the bank’s investment program and policy advisory/analytical services in Brazil in the areas of urban development, infrastructure, disaster risk management, and social development, as well as coordinating the bank’s portfolio in several states including Sao Paulo. Since joining the World Bank in 2004, he has worked on urban development, housing, and infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and North Africa Regions. While at the World Bank, he has managed numerous investment and technical assistance activities related to housing, land and urban upgrading policy, infrastructure, local economic development, municipal/urban development issues, and disaster risk management in several countries. Prior to joining the bank, he worked at the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) in Rotterdam and at the Harvard Center for Urban Development Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Shahid Yusuf

Chief Economist of the Growth Dialogue

Shahid Yusuf is Chief Economist of the Growth Dialogue. Dr. Yusuf has written extensively on development issues, with a special focus on East Asia and has also published widely in various academic journals. He has authored or edited 24 books on industrial and urban development, innovation systems and tertiary education. His five most recent books are: Development Economics through the Decades (2009); Tiger Economies under Threat (co-authored with Kaoru Nabeshima, 2009); Two Dragonheads: Contrasting development paths for Beijing and Shanghai (co-authored with Kaoru Nabeshima 2010); Changing the Industrial Geography in Asia: The Impact of China and India (co-authored with Kaoru Nabeshima 2010); and China Urbanizes (co-edited with Tony Saich, 2008). Dr. Yusuf holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, and a BA in Economics from Cambridge University. He joined the World Bank in 1974 as a Young Professional and while at the Bank spent more than 35 years tackling issues confronting developing countries. During his tenure at the World Bank, Dr. Yusuf was the team leader for the World Bank-Japan project on East Asia’s Future Economy from 2000-2009. He was the Director of the World Development Report 1999/2000, Entering the 21st Century. Prior to that, he was Economic Adviser to the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist (1997-98), Lead Economist for the East Africa Department (1995-97) and Lead Economist for the China and Mongolia Department (1989-1993). Dr. Yusuf lives in Washington DC and consults with the World Bank and with other organizations.

Discussants

Antonio Bento

Professor of Economics, University of Southern California

Antonio M. Bento is a professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics of the University of Southern California. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a research fellow of the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. Currently, he serves as the Director of the Graduate Programs in Public Policy at the Sol Price School.

Gilles Duranton

Professor of Real Estate, Wharton School

Gilles Duranton is professor of real estate and holds the Dean’s Chair in Real Estate. He joined the Wharton School in 2012 after holding academic positions at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. A graduate from HEC Paris and Sorbonne University, he obtained his PhD in economics jointly from the London School of Economics and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris. His research focuses on urban and transportation issues. His empirical work is concerned with urban growth and the estimation of the costs and benefits of cities and clusters. He is also interested in the effects of transportation infrastructure on urban development and the evaluation of local policies. He also conducts theoretical research to gain insight about the distribution of city sizes, the skill composition, and sectoral patterns of activities in cities.

Stéphane Hallegatte

Senior Economist, Climage Change Group, The World Bank

Stéphane Hallegatte is senior economist with the World Bank, in the office of the chief economist of the Climate Change Group. His work includes green growth and climate change mitigation strategies, urban economics, and climate change adaptation and disaster risk management. He is lead author of the IPCC for its fifth assessment report. He also co-led the World Bank report “Inclusive Green Growth” in 2012, and published dozen of articles and several books, including “Natural disasters and climate change – an economic perspective” in 2014. Stephane Hallegatte holds an engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique and a PhD in economics from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Presenters

Shlomo Angel

Senior Research Scholar, NYU Stern Urbanization Project

Shlomo (Solly) Angel is an Adjunct Professor at NYU and senior research scholar at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project, where he leads the Urban Expansion initiative. Angel is an expert on urban development policy, having advised the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He currently focuses on documenting and planning for urban expansion in the developing world. Angel earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a doctorate in city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

Alain Bertaud

Adjunct Professor, Marron Institute

Alain Bertaud is an Adjunct Professor at the Marron Institute and a senior research scholar at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project. At the moment, he is writing a book about urban planning that is tentatively titled Order Without Design. Bertaud previously held the position of principal urban planner at the World Bank. After retiring from the Bank in 1999, he worked as an independent consultant. Prior to joining the World Bank he worked as a resident urban planner in a number of cities around the world: Bangkok, San Salvador (El Salvador), Port au Prince (Haiti), Sana’a (Yemen), New York, Paris, Tlemcen (Algeria), and Chandigarh (India).

Paul E. Carrillo

Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs, George Washington University

Paul E. Carrillo is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. His research interests are in applied microeconomics including applications in urban economics and development economics. His research has been published and/or is forthcoming in leading academic such as Review of Economics and Statistics, International Economic Review, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, and Journal of Housing Economics. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Regional Science. Paul received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Virginia in 2006.

Klaus Desmet

Altshuler Professor of Cities, Regions and Globalization, Southern Methodist University

Klaus Desmet is the Altshuler Professor of Cities, Regions and Globalization at Southern Methodist University and a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He holds an MSc in business and engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. His research focuses on regional economics, international trade, economic growth and diversity. His work has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of Development Economics.

Walker Hanlon

Assistant Professor at UCLA

Walker Hanlon is an Assistant Professor at UCLA, a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER, and a Research Associate at the California Center for Population Research. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2012. He is currently pursuing two main lines of research. The first seeks to better understanding the forces driving innovation and economic growth over the long term using novel historical data sources. Much of his work in this area takes advantage of the economic shock to the British economy causes by the U.S. Civil War. Using this event, he explores how the sudden shortage in cotton caused by the U.S. Civil War on innovation in the British cotton textile industry, and whether the temporary recession in cotton textile cities had a long-term impact on the trajectory of city growth. His second line of research looks at the long-run impact of pollution on urban economies, with a particular focus on industrial pollution linked to coal use in the cities of 19th century Britain. In this line of research, he investigates both the health effects of pollution, as well as the impact of pollution on long-run city growth and population sorting.

Shareen Joshi

Assistant Professor of International Development, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

Shareen Joshi is Assistant Professor of International Development at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Non-Residential Research Fellow in Quantitative Research at ICRW. She has a PhD in Economics from Yale University and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Economics from Reed College in Portland Oregon. Her research focuses on examining the impact of poverty-alleviation policies on the well-being of families. Much of her work has a strong focus on issues of gender and long-term investments in human capital. Recent work has explored the relationship between pollution and child mortality in India, the impact of India’s Janani Suraksha Yojana (Safe Motherhood) program on health-care provision in India, the impact of women’s self-help groups on women’s collective action and the long term consequences of a family planning programs in Bangladesh.

Guy Michaels

Associate Professor, London School of Economics

Guy Michaels is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a research associate at Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the LSE. He is also a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), an affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and an external research associate at the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies (OxCarre). He also serves as a member of the editorial board of the Review of Economic Studies. His research interests include labor economics, economic development, and economic geography. His research focuses on urbanization, labor market inequality and resource-rich economies. He has received a B.Sc. in Mathematics, magna cum laude, from Tel-Aviv University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006.

Adam Storeygard

Assistant Professor of Economics, Tufts University

Adam Storeygard joined Tufts after receiving his PhD from Brown University in 2012. His research interests are in development and urban economics, and particularly in urbanization, transportation, and the economic geography of sub-Saharan Africa. Before graduate school he worked at Columbia University developing and analyzing spatial datasets related to health and development. Professor Storeygard’s work has appeared in journals including the American Economic Review, Nature, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. His prior degrees are an A.B. in Physics from Harvard University and an M. Phil. in Environment and Development from Cambridge University.

Agenda

08:30-9:00 AM Coffee and Registration

Opening Session

09:00-9:10 AM Welcoming Remarks: Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Director of Research, Development Economics, World Bank, and Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior Director, Urban, Rural and Social Development, World Bank

9:10-9:50 AM Keynote Address 1Land-Use Regulation in India and China, Jan Brueckner, Professor of Economics, UC-Irvine

9:50-10:30 AM Keynote Address 2LDC Urban Climate Change Adaptation: Challenges and Opportunities, Matthew Kahn, Professor of Economics, UCLA

10:30-10:40 AM Closing Remarks: Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist, World Bank

10:40-10:55 AM Coffee Break

Session One

Chair: Stephen Hammer, Manager, Climate Change Group, World Bank

DiscussantAntonio Bento (University of Southern California)

10:55-11:20 AM Managing Sustainable Urban Expansion: From Global Monitoring to Stakes in the Ground: Shlomo Angel (NYU Urbanization Project)

11:20-11:45 AM The Long-Term Economic Effect of High Temperatures: Evidence from Earnings Data in Ecuador: Paul Carrillo (GWU), joint with Ram Fishman (GWU) and Jason Russ (GWU)

11:45-12:10 PM Has India Improved Energy Efficiency?: Ejaz Ghani (World Bank), joint with Arti Grover (World Bank) and William Kerr (Harvard)

12:10-12:35 PM The Geography of Development: Evaluating Migration Restrictions and Coastal Flooding: Klaus Desmet (SMU), joint with David Krisztian Nagy (Princeton) and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (Princeton)

12:35-12:50 PM Discussant and Q&A

12:50-1:30 PM Lunch

Session Two

Chair: Sameh Wahba, Practice Manager, Urban, Rural and Social Development (World Bank)

Discussant: Gilles Duranton (Wharton Business School)

1:30-1:55 PM Urbanization and Economic Development: Paul Romer (NYU Urbanization Project)

1:55-2:20 PM The Heterogeneous Effects of Transportation Infrastructure: Evidence from Sub-Sahara Africa: Adam Storeygard (Tufts), joint with Remi Jedwab (GWU)

2:20-2:45 PM Urban Spatial Structures and Urban Sustainability: Alain Bertaud (NYU Urbanization Project)

2:45-3:00 PM Discussant and Q&A

3:00-3:15 PM Coffee Break

Session Three

Chair: Michael Toman, Manager, Environment and Energy Team, Development Research Group, World Bank

DiscussantSomik Lall, Lead Urban Economist, Urban, Rural and Social Development, World Bank

3:15-3:40 PM Negative Externalities of Industrialization: Evidence on Pollution and Child Health in India: Shareen Joshi (Georgetown), joint with Toan Do (World Bank) and Samuel Stolper (Harvard University)

3:40-4:05 PM Endogenous City Disamenities: Lessons from Industrial Pollution in 19th Century Britain: Walker Hanlon (UCLA), joint with Yuan Tian (UCLA)

4:05-4:30 PM Flooded Cities: Guy Michaels (LSE), joint with Adriana Kocornik-Mina (LSE), Tom McDermott (LSE) and Ferdinand Rauch (Oxford)

4:30-4:45 PM Discussant and Q&A

4:45-5:00 PM Coffee Break

Closing Plenary and Cocktail Reception

5:00-6:00 PM Sustainable Urbanization, Round Table: Marianne Fay (World Bank), Gilles Duranton (Wharton), Danny Leipziger (Growth Dialogue), Michael Cohen (Milano School of International Affairs)

6:30-8:00 PM Cocktail reception and welcome speech by Institute for International Economic Policy Director, Stephen Smith, and Shahid Yusuf of the Growth Dialogue At the George Washington University, Lindner Commons Room (6th Floor) of the Elliott School of International Affairs, 1957 E St. N.W. (at the intersection of E and 19th Streets, on E Street), Washington, DC

Election Results and Economic Prospects in Myanmar

Thursday, November 19, 2015

9:15 to 10:30am

 

Elliott School of International Affairs
Suite 505
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

On November 19th at Elliott School of International Affairs, the Institute for International Economic Policy at The George Washington University hosted Vikram Nehru, a senior associate in the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the impact of the November elections in Myanmar. As Nehru has written, “For Myanmar’s leadership, international approval will be central to attracting foreign investment and maintaining the economy’s development momentum.” The international community’s support of the election result’s will be decisive as Myanmar moves forward.

Cosponsors of the event were the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the International Development Studies program.

Listen to the event here with Professor James Foster and Mr. Nehru discussing this turning point in Myanmar’s history.

3rd Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 24, 2015

This event is hosted by the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation (gui2de)

Rafik B. Hariri Building, Rom 240
Georgetown University
3700 O St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20057

 

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

View the Schedule

Download the conference schedule here.

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

Trade and Development Workshop: “Information Frictions and the Law of One Price: When the States and the Kingdom became United”

Claudia Steinwender

 IES Fellow at the International Economics Section at Princeton University

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

12:30 to 2:00pm

 

Monroe Hall of Government
2115 G Street NW, Room 321
Washington, DC 20052

With the establishment of the transatlantic telegraph, information sharing in relation to international trade experienced dramatic changes and heavily impacted global markets. Looking at historical data, we can see how exporters began to respond to information about demand.

During next week’s Trade and Development Workshop, Claudia Steinwender will present her paper, Information Frictions and the Law of One Price: “When the States and the Kingdom became United”, which examines the extent to which information friction affects international trade distortion. Dr. Steinwender will explain how she built a model of international trade that is consistent with empirical evidence in which exporters use the latest news about a foreign market to forecast expected selling prices when their exports arrive.

Claudia Steinwender is an IES Fellow at the International Economics Section at Princeton University and completed her PhD in Economics at the London School of Economics. This summer, July 2015, she will be joining the Harvard Business School as an assistant professor.

Inaugural Conference on India’s Economy

Monday, April 13, 2015

8:15am to 5:00pm

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

The Indian economy is showing signs of revival after several years of slowdown. A new growth oriented government has just presented a budget to boost recovery, inflation is on the decline and India looks poised for faster growth. Yet challenges remain as India must reduce poverty, create jobs for a young and rapidly urbanizing population while increasing its resilience to global headwinds as it continues to open up to the international economy. How can India revive growth with limited fiscal space? What reforms are needed in factor markets: land, labor and finance to ramp up private investment both domestic and foreign? What additional policies and programs are needed to address poverty? How can India become more competitive in global markets, and participate in global and regional trade partnerships? How can the promise of U.S.-India partnership be taken forward concretely? The Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, invites you to a conversation with top academic researchers, officials from the IMF, World bank, OECD, and the UN, and current and former high level policy makers in the U.S. and Indian governments.

9:00-10:30 am – Session One: Economic Outlook and Macro Economic Policies

11:00 am-12:30 pm – Session Two: Finance, Urbanization, and Growth

12:30-2:00 pm – Lunch and Keynote Speaker

  • Arun Kumar, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service “India-U.S. Economic Relations: Prospects and Promise”

2:00-3:30 pm – Session Three: Poverty Eradication and Participation

  • James Foster & Sabina Alkire (GWU, OPHI): Multi Dimensional Poverty Indicators for India
  • Vijayendra Rao (World Bank): The Anatomy of Failure: An Ethnography of A Randomized Trial to Deepen Democracy in Rural India
  • Chair: Stephen Smith (GWU)
  • Discussants: Thangavel Palanivel (UNDP) and Yue Li (World Bank)

3:45-5:00 pm – Closing Session

  • Piritta Sorsa (OECD): Stronger and Better Growth in India
  • Discussants: Swami Nathan Aiyar (Economic Times and Cato Institute), Rakesh Mohan (IMF, RBI), and Ajay Chhibber (IIEP, India) on challenges facing India today

For more information, please contact Kyle Renner at iiep@gwu.edu or 202-994-5320.

Cosponsored by:


View the videos from the sessions here

12:30-2:00 pm – Lunch and Keynote Speake

 

2:00-3:30 pm – Session Three: Poverty Eradication and Participation

 

 

Trade and Development Workshop: “Forecasting When it Matters: Evidence from Semi-Arid India”

Xavier Gine

The World Bank

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

12:30 to 2:00pm

John W. Kendrick Seminar Room
Room 321 at 2115 G Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Next week’s Trade and Development Workshop will feature Xavier Gine, a Lead Economist for the World Bank’s Development Research Group. Gine joined the World Bank in 2002, where his research has focused on access to financial services and rural financial markets. In addition to working for the World Bank, Gine is a BREAD affiliate and Associate Editor for the Journal of Development Economics. His recent research has centered on the economic effects of a borrower bailout in India and forecasting. Please join us as Xavier Gine discusses the relationship between weather, forecasting, and income gains in semi-arid India – a region where an accurate prediction of monsoons can be crucial in agricultural success.

USAID and GW Discuss Ending Extreme Poverty

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

3:00 to 5:00pm

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

As the world achieved the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015, developed and developing countries have focused more sharply on the tougher challenge of eliminating “extreme poverty.” In 2013, USAID initiated a dialogue within the development community about how to achieve this goal. The Trachtenberg and Elliott schools welcomed USAID to provide an update on progress and approaches to the problem of ending extreme poverty and encouraging continued discussion on Tuesday, January 27.

Alex Thier, Assistant to the Administrator for the Policy, Planning, and Learning Bureau at USAID, shared an engaging presentation about USAID’s mission to end extreme poverty. Following the presentation, GW Economics Professor Stephen C. Smith offered remarks on the ways GW is engaging this topic (view his slides here). The presentation, remarks and audience discussion were followed with a short networking reception for attendees.

 

For more information, please contact Kyle Renner at iiep@gwu.edu or 202-994-5320

 

Cosponsored by:

Governments and Internet Governance: A Panel Discussion

Monday, January 26, 2015

12:30 to 2:00pm

 

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

Overview:
Despite their long experience in global and domestic governance, policymakers from many nations struggle to find their way in Internet governance. On one hand, only governments can join international organizations such as the UN or WTO that directly or indirectly regulate the Internet. However, the same governments do not have a privileged role in other Internet governance bodies such as the Internet Governance Forum (IGF); the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); or the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), where governments are one of many actors. Meanwhile, many other stakeholders are increasingly concerned about increased participation by governments in the technical infrastructure and governance bodies that underpin the Internet. In this event, we will examine several different governmental perspectives on Internet governance in these different venues.

Speakers:
Amr Aljowaily, Minister Plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations in NY
Sally Wentworth, Vice President of Global Policy Development, The Internet Society
Veni Markovski, ICANN VP for UN Engagement, Bulgaria
Dr. Marc Daumas, Scientific Attache, Embassy of France
Carolina de Cresce El Debs, Embassy of Brazil
David Satola, The World Bank

Moderator:
Nancy Scola, Technology Journalist

Organizers:
Dr. Susan Ariel Aaronson and Kyle Renner of IIEP and David Vyorst of ISOC-DC organized this event as part of an ongoing seminar series supported by an anonymous donor.

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP), which is located within the Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU, serves as a catalyst for high quality, multi-disciplinary, and non-partisan research on policy issues surrounding economic globalization. The Institute’s research program helps develop effective policy options and academic analysis in a time of growing controversies about global economic integration. The institute’s work encompasses policy responses for those who face continued poverty and financial crises despite worldwide economic growth.

The DC Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-DC) aims to build a better internet for the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia community. The chapter strives to promote open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of people worldwide. ISOC-DC brings together individuals from within the DC area, as well as abroad, to engage in events, discussions, and information exchanges to advance these goals.

2nd Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

8:30am to 8:00pm

 

World Bank Headquarters, Washington, D.C

This conference hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy), and the Growth Dialogue brings together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss the challenges of urbanization in developing countries.

For more information about this conference, click here.

State Capitalism: Its Evolution and Contribution to Industrialization and Development

The seminar, organized by the Growth Dialogue at George Washington University School of Business,  discussed the evolving role of state capitalism in major economies and measures introduced to enhance the efficiency of state enterprises.

State capitalism exists in most countries; however, it is particularly important in the BRICS. The seminar featured three distinguished speakers who  examined the roles of state enterprises and the state more broadly in the development strategies of Brazil, China and India. We  heard how the state balances its economic objectives with the realities of the market, how it seeks to influence the direction of the economy via SOEs, and how successful these efforts have been. The Seminar featured the following guest speakers:
Aldo MUSACCHIO, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Pieter BOTTELIER, Senior Adjunct Professor, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), John Hopkins University

Ajay CHHIBBER,   Former Director General, Independent Evaluation, India and     Assistant Secretary General, United Nations for Asia Pacific

Moderator: Danny Leipziger, Professor of International Business and International Affairs, George Washington School of Business; Managing Director, The Growth Dialogue.

Friday, October 31, 2014

 

George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052

 

Hosted by: Our Collaborators at the Growth Dialogue
Event Inquiry: info@growthdialogue.org

2nd Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 26, 2014

This year’s conference is hosted by the Department of Economics and the Center for Economics and Policy at the University of Maryland.

1400 16th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

 

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World

Dr. Duncan Green

Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University, Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies

His book:
From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World

 

 

Thursday May 9, 2013

5:30 to 7:00pm

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

 

Dr. Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He is author of From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World,/ (Oxfam International, June 2008, second edition October 2012). His daily development blog can be found on http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/.

He was previously Oxfam’s Head of Research, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University, a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development at the Department for International Development (DFID), a Policy Analyst on trade and globalization at CAFOD, the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales and Head of Research and Engagement at the Just Pensions project on socially responsible investment.

He is the author of several books on Latin America including Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics in Latin America (2003, 2nd edition), Faces of Latin America (2012, 4th edition) and Hidden Lives: Voices of Children in Latin America and the Caribbean (1998).

He can be contacted on dgreen@oxfam.org.uk.

 

1st Annual Conference Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES)

Friday, April 20, 2013

Elliott School of International Affairs
Room 212
1957 E St. NW
Washington D.C. 20052

The Washington Area Development Economics Symposium (WADES) is an annual research conference which highlights academic work from researchers at leading economics institutions in development economics in the Washington DC area. Researchers from George Washington University, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), American University, George Mason University, and the Center for Global Development are all participants in the symposium.

Contact iiep@gwu.edu with any questions.

View the Schedule

Download the conference schedule here.

 

 

George Washington University’s Institute for International Economic Policy, housed at the Elliott School of International Affairs, is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality non-partisan academic and policy relevant research on international economic policy. Areas of focus include international trade, international finance, and development economics.

The Global Food Challenge

Monday, April 23, 2018

5:30 to 7:00pm – Reception to Follow

 

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

Dr. Shenggen Fan

Director General, IFPRI

RSVP now

Dr. Shenggen Fan

This forum will be based on the global food challenge:

  • How can we feed 9 billion people while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint?
  • What will it take to finally eradicate hunger?
  • What are the most urgent research priorities on this subject?

Sustainable Development is emerging as the defining challenge of our generation, and it will critically require a new kind of interaction between policy and research. The Sustainable Development Forum, a series of talks by leaders in academia and in policy, will attempt to map the research agenda for sustainable development following the Rio +20 conference. What will sustainable development entail? What are the most crucial questions we need to be asking? How should academia go about searching for answers that will actually inform real action and policy changes?

International Symposium on “The Economics of Ultra-poverty: Causes and Remedies

Visit the ultra-poverty initiative page here.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

9:00am to 5:00pm – Reception to Follow

 

Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052
Schedule

Day 1: Thursday March 22

Ultra-poverty Research Workshop: Finding, Measuring, and Modeling the Ultra-poor

Ultra-Poverty Research in Progress, Morning Session (7th Floor, City View Room)

9:00-9:30 James Foster, GWU, Introduction and Overview

9:30-10:15 Sabina Alkire, Oxford, and Suman Seth, Oxford, Severe Poverty and Sub-national Disparities

10:15-11:00 Oded Stark, Bonn, Relative Poverty: Concept, Measurement, and Social Welfare Repercussions

 

11:00-11:15 – Coffee Break

 

11:15-12:00 Michael Carter, UC Davis, Poverty Traps

 

Lunch 12:00-1:00 (7th Floor, City View Room)

 

Ultra-Poverty Research in Progress, Afternoon Session I (7th Floor, City View Room)

1:00-1:45 David Stifel, Lafayette and IFPRI Addis, Poverty Mapping Techniques to Track Poverty over Time

1:45-2:30 Nora Lustig, Tulane, Fiscal Redistribution and Fiscal Mobility: A New Concept to Assess the Impact of Benefits and Taxes on the Poor

 

Coffee Break 2:30-2:45

2:45-3:30 Jose Manuel Roche, Oxford, and Mauricio Apablaza, Oxford, Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics

 

Coffee Break 3:30-3:45 (7th Floor Lobby)

 

Ultra-Poverty Research in Progress, Afternoon Session II (7th Floor, State Room)

3:45-4:30 Andy McKay, Sussex, Extreme, Multidimensional, and Chronic Poverty

4:30-5:15 Patrick Vinck, Harvard, Data on Violence, Conflict and Ultra-Poverty

 

Day 2 Friday March 23

Policy and Program Conference: Ultra-poverty Causes and Remedies

Four Aspects of Ultra-poverty 9:00-11:15 (7th Floor, City View Room)

Stephen Smith, GWU, Overview

James Foster, GWU, Depth and Severity

Sabina Alkire, Oxford, Multiple Deprivations

Andy McKay, Sussex, Multiple Periods

Pete Lanjouw, World Bank, Spatial Concentration

General Discussion

 

Coffee Break 11:15-11:30

 

Ultra-poverty: Evidence, Programs and Policy (7th Floor, City View Room)

Session 11:30-12:45 Donor and Civil Society Perspectives

Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva, World Bank, Overview

Steven Radelet, Chief Economist, USAID, A Perspective from USAID

Munshi Sulaiman, BRAC, BRAC’s Ultra-poverty Work in Bangladesh and Africa

 

Lunch 12:45-1:15 (7th Floor, City View Room)

 

Evidence, Programs and Policy, continued (7th Floor, City View Room)

1:15-1:45 Ethiopia: Ultra-Poverty Problems and Opportunities

David Stifel, Lafayette and IFPRI-Addis, Infrastructure, Agricultural Productivity, and Poverty

Stephen Smith, GWU, Multidimensional Poverty Traps? Evidence from Ethiopia

1:45-2:15 Bangladesh: Multidimensional Poverty, Targeting, Programs, and Evaluation

Virginia Robano, GWU, Targeting and Assessment with Multidimensional Poverty

Islam Tonmoy, Kentucky, Program Evaluation with Multidimensional Measures

2:15-3:00 Chile and Peru: Poverty in a Middle Income, High Inequality Environment

Veronica Silva, World Bank, Chile

Renos Vakis, World Bank, “The right medicine: TB, agency and productive safety nets – early lessons from the slums of Lima”

Mauricio Apablaza, Oxford, Chronic Multidimensional Poverty in Chile

 

Coffee Break 3:00-3:15 (6th Floor, Lindner Commons)

 

Missing Dimensions, Hidden Poverty 3:15-5:30 (6th Floor, Lindner Commons)

Sabina Alkire, Oxford, Overview

Oded Stark, Bonn, Degrading Work

Hans Hoogeveen, World Bank, Disabilities

Elizabeth Kneebone, Brookings, Neighborhood effects

 

5-minute pause while refreshments and snacks are served on-site

 

Tony Castleman, GWU, Human Recognition

Jeni Klugman, World Bank, Women and Empowerment

James Foster, GWU, and Sabina Alkire, Oxford, Constructing the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

5:30-6:00 – Wrap up (6th Floor, Lindner Commons)

Food Price Increases: Causes, Impacts and Responses

Keynote Speaker Alain de Janvry (UC Berkeley)

Conference videos to be uploaded soon.

Friday September 30, 2011

Elliott School of International Affairs
Linder Family Commons Suite 602
1957 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

 

8:30-9:00 a.m. – Breakfast

9:00-9:15 a.m. – Opening Remarks
Stephen Smith (GWU-IIEP)
 – Forum on Food Price Increases

9:15-10:45 p.m. – Panel 1 – Causes: Long and Short Term Forces Underlying Food Price Spikes and Trends

Speakers:
9:15-9:45 – Nora Lustig (Tulane University), “Survey of Long and Short Run Factors” – Thought for Food Revisited: Causes, Consequences and Policy Dilemmas
9:45-10:15 – Keith O. Fuglie (Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture) – “Global and Regional Food Productivity and Output Trends” – Productivity Growth

10:15-10:45 a.m. – Panel 1 Discussion

10:45-11:15 a.m. – Coffee Break

11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. – Panel 2 – Impacts: Poverty, Nutrition and Welfare Impacts of Food Price Increases

Speakers:
11:15 a.m. – 11:45 p.m. – Francisco Ferreira (World Bank) – “Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil” – Background Paper
11:45-12:15 p.m. – James Foster (George Washington University) – “Measurement Issues in Assessing Poverty Impacts of Food Price Spikes” – PPT

12:15-12:45 p.m. – Panel 2 Discussion

12:45-2:00 p.m. – Lunch

1:15-2:00 p.m. – Luncheon Keynote: Alain de Janvry (UC Berkeley) – PPT

2:00-4:00 p.m. – Panel 3 – Responses: Policy and Program Responses to Food Price Spikes 

Speakers:
2:00-2:30 p.m. – Carlos B Martins-Filho (IFPRI and University of Colorado, Boulder) – “Excessive Food Price Volatility Early Warning System” – PPT and “Maize Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System” and “Maize Prices and Returns”
2:30-3:00 p.m. – Maximo Torero (IFPRI) – “Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses” – PPT
3:00-3:30 pm. – Uma Lele (Author and Development Consultant) – “Policy Responses to Food Price Spikes” – Challenges Facing the Global Architecture for Food and Agriculture Going Forward

3:30-4:00 p.m. – Panel 3 Discussion

 

Volatility in Commodity Markets – Causes and Impacts on the Poor

Joachim von Braun

Director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and Professor for Economic and Technological Change at University of Bonn, Germany and former Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Dr. von Braun’s PowerPoint slides can be viewed here.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

12:30 to 2:00pm

 

Lindner Commons, 6th Floor
1957 E St NW
Washington, DC 20052

Human Rights, Development and Economic Growth – Metrics, New Ways of Thinking, and New Strategies

April 7 12:30-7:00 & April 8 8:00-5:00

 

The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052

Since the members of the UN negotiated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the world has made great human rights progress. But that progress is not easy to measure. The Universal Declaration has over 30 distinct human rights. Moreover, as Albert Einstein once warned “not everything that counts can be counted.” Policymakers, activists, and scholars do not agree on how to count -e.g. whether they should measure progress (as evidenced by new laws) or outcomes (as in educational outcomes).

But in recent years, three developments have helped increase our understanding of the relationship between human rights and development. First, Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen established a scholarly bridge between economics and human rights. He taught us that poverty, hunger, and a lack of education are conditions that restrict freedom and therefore respect for human rights provides a platform for economic growth (Vizard: 2005). Influenced by Sen, the UNDP produced the Human Development Index which focuses on state performance on capabilities. Second, in 2000, officials from 181 nations agreed to collaborate to cut global poverty in half by 2015. They also agreed to set targets and measure their progress towards achieving global human rights and development goals. Thus, the Millennium Development Goals made the question of how to measure progress more visible. Building on these insights, scholars and activists began to develop new metrics. Some designers focused not only on human rights but also on measures of governance and economic growth. For example, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), published for the first time in the 2010 Report, redefined poverty as not simply the absence of money, but the variety of deprivations with which poor households typically contend. It can be deconstructed by region, ethnicity and other groupings as well as by dimension (living standards, education and health). The Human Opportunity Index (HOI) is a measure of society’s progress in equitably providing opportunities for all children. HOI takes into account how the personal “circumstances” for which a child cannot be held accountable, like location or parental wealth, affect his/her probability of accessing basic services that are necessary to succeed in life, like timely education, vaccination, safe water or electricity. The index was first applied in the World Bank publication “Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean” in 2009 and has since been used in a number of countries.

This conference, organized by Dr. Susan Aaronson, will examine these new metrics and how scholars, business leaders, and government officials are using them to devise cost-effective approaches to stimulating economic growth while advancing human rights.

Schedule

April 7, 2011

Location: Lindner Family Commons
1959 E St NW Suite 602


12:30-1:00 – Lunch


1:00-1:15 p.m. – Opening Remarks and Overview
Opening Remarks – Stephen Smith (GWU-IIEP)
Overview of conference objectives – Susan Ariel Aaronson (GWU-IIEP)
Presentation


1:15-2:35 p.m. – Panel 1 – Multidimensional Poverty Measurement: Uses for a new understanding of the meaning of poverty and deprivation.

Speakers:
Jeni Klugman (UNDP), “UNDP’s Multidimensional Poverty Metric”
Shabana Singh (Vanderbilt University) – “Towards a Multinational Measure of governance” Presentation
Ricardo Aparicio (Director for Policy Analysis at Coneval, Mexico) – ” Multidimensional poverty measurement: a human rights based approach. The case of Mexico” Presentation
Discussant: Ambar Narayan (World Bank)
Comments


2:35-3:45 p.m. – Panel 2 – Measuring Inequality of Opportunities Among Children: the Human Opportunity Index

Speakers:
Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi (Acting Director, Poverty Reduction and Equity, World Bank) – “Equality of Opportunity: Analytical Challenges and Policy Implications” Presentation
Javier Escobal (GRADE, Peru) – “Is the Playing Field Leveling in Peru? The Evolution of Children’s Opportunities” Presentation
Discussant: Dena Ringold (Senior Economist, Human Development Sector, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank)
Comments


3:45-4:00 – Coffee Break


4:00-5:30 p.m. – Panel 3 – New Metrics for Assessing Human Rights and How These Metrics Relate to Development and Governance

Speakers:
David Cingranelli (Professor of Political Science, SUNY – Binghamton) – “CIRI Human Rights Data Set” Presentation
Sabine Donner (Senior Project Manager, Bertelsmann Foundation) – “Transformation Index” Presentation
Nathaniel Heller (Managing Director, Global Integrity Index)
Moderator: Siobhan McInerny-Lankford (Senior Policy Officer, Nordic Trust Fund, OPCS, World Bank)
Comments


5:50-6:00p.m. – Coffee Break and Schmoozing
(Please note change of Conference Location to Harry Harding Auditorium, 2nd Floor)


6:00-7:00 p.m. – Evening Keynote – “Human Rights Within a Governance Empirical Framework: Some Unorthodox Observations from a Non-Expert”
Daniel Kaufmann (Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institute)
Comments


April 8th

Please note change of Conference Location to 805 21st Street, NW, B07

8:00-9:00 a.m. – Continental Breakfast


9:00-10:20 a.m. – Panel 4 – Caveats on Metrics

Speakers:
Hans-Otto Sano (Senior Policy Officer, Nordic Trust Fund, OPCS, World Bank)“Human Rights Compliance and Performance Indicators”
Siobhan McInerny-Lankford (Senior Policy Officer, Nordic Trust Fund, OPCS, World Bank)
Elizabeth Eagen (Program Officer, Human Rights Data Initiative, Open Society Foundations) Presentation
ModeratorCharles Kenny (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development)
Comments


10:20-12:00 p.m. – Panel 5 – Using Datasets to Examine Human Rights and Economic Change

Speakers:
Robert and Shannon Blanton (Professors of Political Science, University of Memphis) – “Rights, Institutions, and FDI” Presentation
Rod Abouharb (Lecturer in International Relations, University College, London) – “Can the WTO Help Nations Clean Up and Improve Human Rights?” Presentation
Jean-Pierre Chauffour (Lead Economist, International Trade and Development Group, World Bank) – “On the Relevance of Positive and Negative Rights in Economic Development – New empirical evidence (1975-2007)” Presentation
Daniel Meija (Associate Professor of Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia) – “Is Violence Against Union Members in Colombia Systematic and Targeted?”
Moderator: Emmanuel Teitelbaum (Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, GWU)
Comments


12:00-1:30 p.m. – Lunch and Lunch Keynote
Introduction: Sabine Donner (Senior Project Manager, Bertelsmann Foundation)
Keynote Presenter: James Foster (Professor of Economics and International Affairs, GWU-IIEP) – “Finding Meaningful Numbers”
Comments


1:30-3:05 p.m. – Panel 6 – NGO and Business Perspectives on Metrics to Assess Human Rights

Gerard Pachoud (Special Advisor, UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights) – “The Ruggie Guidelines and Use of Metrics to Assess Business Human Rights Performance”
Panelists will discuss how business can and does use metrics to assess human rights
Speakers:
Bennett Freeman (Senior Vice President, Sustainability Research and Policy, Calvert Investments)
Chris Jochnick (Director, Private Sector Department, Oxfam America)
Faris Natour (Director of Research, Business for Social Responsibility)
Olav Ljosne (Senior Manager, International Operations, Shell Oil Company)
ModeratorHans J. Hogrefe (Senior Policy Officer, Physicians for Human Rights)
Comments


3:05-3:15 p.m. – Coffee Break


3:15-4:45 p.m. – Panel 7 – New Governmental Strategies That Use Metrics and Link Economic Growth and Human Rights

Speakers:
Ginny Bauman (Director of Partnerships, Free the Slaves) and Jane Sigmon (Senior Coordinator, International Programs, Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Office) – “Metrics to Assess Progress in Reducing Trafficking” Presentation
Raymond Gilpin (Associate Vice President, USIP) and Mike Dzniec (Senior Program Officer, USIP) – “Measuring Progress with Reconstruction and Human Rights in Conflict Environments: A Metrics Framework” Presentation
Tom Kelly (Managing Director, Millenium Challenge Corporation, US Government) – “How the MCC uses Metrics”
Moderator: Michael Moore (Professor of Economics and International Affairs, GWU-IIEP)
Comments


4:30-5:30 p.m. – So, What do you think? Are these metrics useful? Can they be improved?
Moderator: Susan Aaronson (Associate Research Professor of International Affairs, GWU-IIEP)
Comments