Monthly Archives: April 2012

Today marks the launch of Columbia’s Center on Global Economic Governance (CGEG), with Alan Krueger, Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers delivering the keynote address at its opening conference.

The concept behind CGEG is to bring together the best minds, from Columbia faculty and from outside, to focus on key issues in global economic governance and develop effective policy approaches.

With developed economies largely stagnant, emerging markets facing their own challenges, and growing intra-national equality the world over, we need now more than ever a new approach to global economic governance that puts people first. The advent of the G20 as the premier forum for global governance widened the circle beyond the traditional G7/G8 configuration, but its initial impetus has dissipated, while issues of legitimacy remain to be addressed.

With Jeffrey Sachs and PEPM’s own Guillermo Calvo on the panel alongside Krueger and others on the panel, I’m really looking forward to the opening conference.

You can watch the livestream here from 9am EST / 2pm GMT.

You can find my own recent thoughts on the evolution of Global Economic Governance here.

Last weekend, I had the great privilege of attending, as part of the Young Scholars’ Initiative, a sublime conference organized by the Institute of New Economic Thinking:

Paradigm Lost: Re-thinking Economics & Politics.

Leading lights of the economics profession came together with top policymakers and journalists to appraise the state of current economic thinking, and to chart a better way forward.

Conference highlights are viewable here. Continue reading →

The IMF today published its latest World Economic Outlook. According to Chief Economist, Oliver Blanchard, the world economy has been on a rollercoaster these past six months. Recent market jitters over Spain, and collective schizophrenia between growth and austerity, would suggest that we have just come over the crest of a peak rather than having reached the end of the ride.

Upgrades to growth forecasts for several economic regions are welcome, but risks of derailment continue to clutter the path ahead. Europe’s economy is expected to contract in 2012, while a spike in oil prices and a Chinese slowdown also pose downside risks to global growth.

 
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