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Events of Note

March 24, 2023
Harvard Professor Raj Chetty will deliver the Razin Policy Lecture on March 24, 2023.  

The Georgetown Center for Economic Research and the GU Economics Department are pleased to announce Professor Raj Chetty will deliver the 2023 Razin Lecture. The keynote lecture will take place on Friday, March 24, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. in the Riggs Library within Healy Hall at Georgetown University.

Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses big data to study the science of economic opportunity: how we can give children from all backgrounds better chances of succeeding?  Chetty’s work has been widely cited in academia, media outlets, and policy discussions in the United States and beyond.

Chetty received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 and is one of the youngest-tenured professors in Harvard’s history. He has received numerous awards for his research, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the John Bates Clark medal, given to the economist under 40 whose work is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the field.

The Razin Lecture is accompanied by the awarding of the Razin Prize for best research paper by an advanced graduate student in Economics. The 2023 Razin Prize was awarded to Gretchen Sileo

Gretchen Sileo’s paper entitled “Proactive and Reactive Infrastructure Investment” was chosen as the best research paper this year. We extend our congratulations to Gretchen’s thesis advisor, Professors John Rust and Nathan Miller.

More on the Razin Prize and Policy Lecture, its background, and history can be found here. The recording of the event and past Razin Lectures can be accessed by visiting our Georgetown University Economics YouTube Channel.

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March 2, 2023

Rebuilding Ukraine
Principles, Policies, and the Role of the European Union?

Thursday, March 2, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST
Location: Online via Zoom

Registration Required

February 24, 2023 marks one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The reconstruction of Ukraine cannot be about rebuilding the country to its pre-war state; rather, it should strive for a deep modernization of the country. All critical elements of the economy and society will have to undergo reforms to help Ukraine escape the post-Soviet legacy and become a full-fledged democracy with a modern economy, strong institutions, and a powerful defense sector. This presentation and discussion, based on the CEPR Paris Report: Rebuilding Ukraine: Principles and Policies (2022), will address opportunities and challenges in this effort. 

For more information, please visit the event page. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (Université Libre de Bruxelles) – Public Policy House, and Global Economic Challenges Network at Georgetown University.

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February 28, 2023
Announcement of the 2022-2023 GCER Distinguished Visitors

We are pleased to announce the following three prominent scholars will be the GCER Distinguished Visitors for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Hamish Low is the James Meade Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. Hamish will visit the economics department the week March 13-17.

Charles (Chad) Jones is The STANCO 25 Professor of Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Chad will visit the economics department the week of March 27-31.

Manuel Arellano is a Professor of Economics at CEMFI in Madrid. He has held appointments at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. Manuel will visit the economics department the week of April 17-21.

For more information, please click here.

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January 5, 2023
Honoring the Life and Career of Professor Martin Ravallion

With extraordinary sadness, we announce the tragic passing of our colleague Professor Martin Ravallion on Saturday, December 24, 2022. 

The following obituary was written by Professor Garance Genicot. Professor Ravallion joined the department in 2013 as the Edmond D. Villani Professor of Economics after 24 years at the World Bank. Prior to joining Georgetown in 2013, he was the World Bank’s Acting Chief Economist after a long stint as the Director of the World Bank’s research department, the Development Research Group.

For more information, please click here.

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December 5, 2022
The Law and Economics of Web 3.0

Monday, December 5, 2022
11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. EST

Location: Online and in-person at Amphithéâtre Claude Érignac (13 rue de l’Université, 75507, Paris, France)

RSVP

Confronting the abuse, exploitation, and manipulation of personal data collected via internet use is one of society’s great challenges. The legal and economic issues related to the property rights of these harvested data have implications for topics including personal safety, firm profitability, and consumer welfare. Moreover, targeted misinformation campaigns which exploit such data, combined with the web’s unparalleled capacity to reach and influence a specified audience, represents a danger to the world’s democracies. As we prepare for generation 3.0 of the web, a panel of experts will discuss many of the extraordinarily urgent questions which will accompany its arrival.

For more information, please visit the event page. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Georgetown University Global Economic Challenges Network, Sciences Po, and the McCourt Institute.

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October 5, 2022
Economic Stabilization and Reform Options for Argentina

Wednesday, October 12, 2022
2:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. EDT
Location: Leavey Center-Leavey Program Room

Inflation in Argentina is estimated to reach 95% by the end of 2022, and economists forecast that it will hit a three-digit mark by the beginning of 2023—the third highest expected inflation in the world according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). GDP per capita has been stagnant for the last decade and poverty is anticipated to reach 40% in 2022. Once one of the richest nations on the continent, Argentina has experienced a long process of economic decline as the country has been plagued by decades of economic crisis, 22 IMF emergency financial programs, nine debt defaults, and growing poverty rates.

How can Argentina’s leaders reduce inflation to match the inflation rates faced by neighboring countries? Should Argentina abandon the peso and make the U.S. dollar its official currency or follow a more traditional stabilization program like in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico? What policies can be implemented to foster inclusive and sustainable economic growth? How can Argentina strengthen its ties with the international economy? To discuss these issues, the Georgetown Americas Institute is hosting three-panel discussions with leading economists and policymakers to analyze potential alternatives for economic reform in Argentina. 

For the schedule of the event and the speaker bios, please click here.

This event will be livestreamed on Youtube (new window).

This event is co-sponsor by the Georgetown Americas Institute and the Georgetown Center for Economic Research (new window).

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September 7, 2022
3rd Annual DC-MD-VA Econometrics Workshop

The Georgetown Center for Economic Research is pleased to announce that the 3rd Annual DC-MD-VA Econometrics Workshop will be held at Georgetown University on Saturday, September 17, 2022. This is the first in-person installment of an annual event that was launched in 2020 by the DC-MD-VA Econometrics community (GU, GWU, JHU, and UVA). The workshop, held annually on the third Saturday in September, is meant to gather faculty and graduate students working in Econometrics for a one-day event. 

For more information about the workshop, please click here.

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August 23, 2022
UCSD Professor Renee Bowen will deliver the Razin Policy Lecture on September 19, 2022  

The Georgetown Center for Economic Research and the GU Economics Department are pleased to welcome back Professor Renee Bowen who will deliver the 2022 Razin Lecture. The keynote lecture will take place on Monday, September 19, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. in the Fisher Colloquium within the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

For more information, please click here.

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August 18, 2022
Informality and Wage Setting Policies in Latin America

Event Information
Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. EDT

Location: Off Campus (Insper Learning Institution, São Paulo, Brazil) and Online via Zoom/YouTube

This daylong event is an in-person academic conference and policy discussion at the Insper Institute of Education and Research in São Paulo, Brazil; the event will also be livestreamed. Please continue to check this event page for the most up-to-date information.

For decades, many Latin American economies have displayed low rates of economic growth and stagnant labor productivity accompanied by high and increasing levels of income and wage inequality.

These economies are also characterized by costly and burdensome labor regulations that are imperfectly enforced, which led to the high and persistent levels of informality observed in the region. While this increases the level of flexibility, it may also induce less investment in human capital, higher earnings volatility, greater misallocation of resources across firms and sectors, and result in lower aggregate productivity and growth. Moreover, informal workers typically do not have access to social security and unemployment insurance, and they are not covered by minimum wage legislation.

Leading scholars will discuss issues related to wage setting and labor market informality in Latin America during the academic conference, which will be followed by a moderated policy discussion combining a number of these scholars with a group of policymakers with specific expertise for this region.

How to RSVP

Online: For those who wish to join online, please RSVP via Zoom. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

In-person: For those who wish to attend in person, please RSVP via email to Mayara Almeida Pedro at mayaraap@insper.edu.br. The in-person event will take place at Insper Learning Institution, R. Quatá, 300 – Vila Olímpia, São Paulo – SP, 04546-042, Brazil.

Participants Include

Professor David Card is the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Professor Pinelopi Goldberg is the Elihu Professor of Economics at Yale University and was the chief economist of the World Bank Group from 2018 to 2020.

Ilan Goldfajn is the former president of the Central Bank of Brazil and current director of the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere Department.

Santiago Levy is a nonresident senior fellow with the Global Economy and Development Program at the  Brookings Institution and served as the vice president for sectors and knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank from 2008 to 2018.

Mauricio Cárdenas is visiting senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA and former minister of finance and public credit and minister of mines and energy of Colombia.

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August 17, 2022
A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960 – 2017

Event Information
Date: Friday, August 26, 2022
Time: 12:50 p.m. – 2:50 p.m. EDT
Location: Off Campus – Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Mexico City (11:50 a.m. CDT – 1:40 p.m. CDT) and Online via Zoom/YouTube

What went wrong with the economic development of Latin America over the past half-century? Along with periods of poor economic performance, the region’s countries have been plagued by a wide variety of economic crises. In A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960–2017 (2021), editors Timothy J. Kehoe and Juan Pablo Nicolini bring together leading economists to explore the economic performance of the 10 largest countries in South America and Mexico, with a comprehensive look at six decades of macroeconomic policies. The contributors advance the hypothesis that, despite different manifestations, the disappointing economic performance has been the result of poorly designed or implemented fiscal and monetary policies. 

To further explore the book’s themes, this online event features Kehoe and Nicolini, along with contributor Felipe Meza, in conversation with key scholars, former government officials, and financial industry leaders. The event will be held in Spanish and take place in person in Mexico City; it will also be livestreamed on YouTube with simultaneous translation to English. 

This event is hosted by the Economic Department of Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) with the Georgetown Americas Institute (GAI) and the Center for Economic Research (GCER) at Georgetown University.

Online: For those who wish to join online, please RSVP via Zoom. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

In-person: For those who wish to attend in person, please RSVP via email to fabiola.bustamante@itam.mx. The in-person event will take place at Auditorio Raúl Baillères, Río Hondo #1, Col. Progreso Tizapán, CP. 01080. Alc. Álvaro Obregón, Ciudad de México, Mexico.

Schedule

12:50 a.m. EDT / 11:50 a.m. CDT | Welcome

1:00 p.m. EDT / 12:00 p.m. CDT | Book Presentation and Discussion: A Monetary and fiscal History of Latin America, 1960-2017

Timothy J. Kehoe, University of Minnesota
Felipe Meza, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
Juan P. Nicolini, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis / Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Jaime Serra Puche (moderator), SAI Law and Economics

2:00 p.m. EDT / 1:00 p.m CDT | Current Challenges in Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Latin America

Lorenza Martinez, Actinver
Alexandre Tombini, Bank of International Settlements
Alexander Werner, Georgetown Americas Institute
Ana M. Aguilar (moderator), Bank of International Settlements

2:40 p.m. EDT / 1:40 CDT | Q&A

Featuring

Ana M. Aguilar joined Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in January 2019 as a senior economist. Before that, she worked at the Bank of Mexico from 1998 to 2018, and for most of that time Aguilar oversaw monetary policy analysis as the head of the Directorate of Economic Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in economics (2004) from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been a lecturer at the Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM), from which she received her bachelor’s degree in economics.

Timothy Kehoe is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, where he has been a professor in the Department of Economics since 1987. In addition, he is an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. His research and teaching focus on the theory and application of general equilibrium models, especially in macroeconomics and international trade. Originally from Newport, Rhode Island, he received his B.A. in economics and mathematics from Providence College in 1975 and his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1979. He has held teaching positions at Wesleyan University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. 

Lorenza Martinez is CEO of Actinver and general manager of its digital unit, one of the few women in Mexico to head a large financial services business. She is spearheading Actinver’s efforts to grow its digital channels client base to over 100,000. Previously she worked at Accenture as managing director from 2019 to 2022, she also served as general manager of Banco de Mexico’s payments and corporate services arm for more than five years. Martínez has a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Felipe Meza is director at the Centro de Análisis e Investigación Económica (CAIE) and a professor of economics at ITAM. As director of CAIE he works on analyzing and forecasting the short and medium-term evolution of the Mexican economy. Meza has published in international peer-reviewed academic journals such as the Journal of International Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, and Economics Letters. His awards include the Kenneth J. Arrow Prize for Junior Economists by the Berkeley Electronic Press (2009) and second place in the Premio Banamex de Economia (2015). He has been a member of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores of Mexico (2010-2016) and since 2020 a member of México, ¿cómo vamos?, a Mexican think tank. Meza earned his undergraduate degree in economics from ITAM and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.

Juan P. Nicolini is a senior research economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Prior to joining the Fed in 2009, Nicolini taught at ITAM, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, where he holds a part-time position. In addition, he served as chairman of the Economics Department (1994–1999) and president (2001–2009) of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. In 2006 and 2007, he was Tinker Visiting Professor in the Economics Department and the Center for Latin-American Studies at the University of Chicago. He has also been a visiting researcher at the Banco de Portugal and in the Monetary Stance Division of the European Central Bank. Nicolini studied economics at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán in Argentina and earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Chicago. The focus of his research centers on monetary theory and policy and on bounded rationality in macroeconomics. 

Jaime Serra Puche is a former Mexican government official, having served from 1986 to 1994 in roles including undersecretary of finance, secretary of trade and industry, and secretary of finance. As secretary of trade and industry, he led the negotiation and implementation of NAFTA; headed the negotiations of free-trade agreements with Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Costa Rica; and promoted the creation of the Federal Competition Commission in Mexico. He is currently the chairman of SAI Law and Economics, a Mexican consulting firm. He is also the founder of the Arbitration Center of Mexico, the NAFTA Fund of Mexico, and electronic auctions company Aklara. Serra is a graduate of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He earned a master’s degree in economics at El Colegio de Mexico and a Ph.D. in economics at Yale University. He has been a professor of economics at El Colegio de Mexico, Stanford University, Princeton University, and New York University. 

Alexandre Tombini has served as chief representative of the Bank of International Settlements Office for the Americas since September 2019. Before joining BIS, he was executive director of the board at the International Monetary Fund for Brazil, Cabo Verde, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guyana, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, Timor-Leste, and Trinidad and Tobago. Previously, he was with the Central Bank of Brazil, where he served as governor after deputy governor positions in financial system regulation and in economic research. He was also a BIS board member and chairman of the Standing Committee on Budget Resources of the Financial Stability Board. Tombini holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Alejandro Werner is the founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute and a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that appointment, he rose to undersecretary in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.

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July 18, 2022
The Impact of the Russian Invasion on the Ukrainian, Russian, and Global Economies: A Conversation Revisited
Monday, July 18, 2022
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. EDT
Location: Online (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Brussels)

In March 2022, leading economists and regional experts Sergei Guriev and Tymofiy Mylovanov discussed the economic implications (new window) of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022. Their highly illuminating discussion considered the complexities of supply chains, global food security, the two countries’ economic futures, and more. Four months later, with the economic toll on the world’s economies and the humanitarian cost imposed on Ukraine and the surrounding regions continuing to grow, we reunite these two experts to share their views of the current status of this crisis. Alejandro Werner, founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute, will moderate the conversation.

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April 26, 2022
The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Online (5:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. CEST)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the associated conflict has resulted in a major exodus from the country as individuals seeking safety attempt to escape the horrors of war. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has recently estimated that in excess of four million Ukrainians have left their country (with over seven million internally displaced), resulting in an extraordinary crisis with major humanitarian and economic implications. This webinar will feature four leading economists discussing the impacts of this ongoing refugee crisis and its implications for Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

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April 22, 2022
4th Annual Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium (WALES) hosted by the Georgetown Center for Economic Research (GCER)

Welcome, DC labor economists! We are pleased to invite you to the fourth annual Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium (WALES), which will be held at Georgetown University on Friday, April 22, 2022.

WALES is a one-day labor conference economics conference that brings together researchers from many DC institutions. The goal is to provide an outlet to share recent or ongoing research and get to know other researchers.

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