New Asian growth model; BRICs and Indonesia

Here is a link to a conference on "Beyond the Global Crisis: A New Asian Growth Model?". Here is another link link to an interesting OECD seminar on growth prospects for Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Africa (Russia is missing).

IMF's "Finance and Development" journal on the post-crisis world

A number of very interesting articles in this edition of "F&D". There is Blanchard, IMF's Chief Economist, on "Sustaining Recovery", Giavazzi on "Growth after the Crisis" and an interesting text on "Anticipating the Next Crisis"

Videos from panel discussions during the IMF/WB meeting in Istanbul, October

The World Bank provides a pretty amazing website with video recordings of most panel discussions taking place during the early October IMF/WB Annual Meeting. A sample of panels below:

Special Event: What Now? The World Beyond the Crisis - October 2, 2009

10:00 AM - 11:15 AM BBC World Debate: Global Financial Crisis: Can We Afford the Future?

11:30 AM - 01:00 PM Financial Sector Policies in the Crisis
11:30 AM - 01:00 PM Fiscal Policies for the Crisis and Recovery

01:30 PM - 03:00 PM Financial Crisis and the Poor

03:15 PM - 04:45 PM Development Finance in Light of the Crisis
03:15 PM - 04:45 PM Impact of the Global Financial and Economic Crisis on Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries

How different is the current crisis from the Great Depression?

Barry Eichengreen and Kevin H. O’Rourke track the data in their useful text on www.voxeu.org. They argue (as of September 1) that "World industrial production, trade, and stock markets are now showing signs of recovery. Still – today's crisis remains dramatic by the standards of the Great Depression"

European Comission's report on the crisis in the EU

My friend at the European Commission, Istvan Szekely, has co-authored a very interesting report on the "Economic Crisis in Europe: Causes, Consequences and Responses". . A brief summary is available here on www.voxeu.org

Fiscal multipliers- how big are they?

See what Krugman and the Economist have to say about it.

Krugman answers questions on the economy

From Krugman's blog an overview of his definitions on everyting from stimulus money to reading lists. Check it out!

World Knowledge Forum 2009 in Korea

Very interesting conference with a panoply of exciting presentations from the likes of Krugman, Roach, Porter etc. There are also presentations on the future of business after the crisis. Recommended to my students!

Larry Summers' speech on the financial sector's reform

There is a video with his speech on The Economist website.

BTW, I am amazed with how far knowledge sharing has com: you can watch and listen to the top global economists (and, of course, not only) and the knowledge they impart from any place in the world. One just needs a computer, Internet, and knowledge of English. Isn't that amazing? This knowledge sharing has to contribute to global growth in the future. One only wishes that there would be some diversity in the speakers, not only Americans (all US-educated economists) please!

How things changed: in the 1970's no one really smart wanted to go into banking

Krugman in his post on October 15 says the following:

"Smart guys and Wall Street
I’m a little late on this great Calvin Trillin piece, but it accords with my own more specialized memories from grad school. The year I got my PhD (1977), there was a very clear ranking of desirable career paths. The best economics grad students went into academic jobs; the middle went to the Fed or the IMF; the bottom went, poor souls, to Wall Street.

Even then this meant an inverse relationship between academic ranking and income, since new assistant professors were paid only around $15,000, equivalent to a bit more than 50K today. But the prestige differences more than offset the pay differentials, at least as we saw it then. And one thing that’s hard to convey is how boring business seemed in the 1960s and 1970s. (”I’ve got just one word for you: plastics.”)

But even a decade later, it was the guys who went off to investment banks who were buying the third homes, while the top students were trying to eke out their incomes with an occasional consulting gig. And it wasn’t just the money: business stopped being so boring, and was even getting to be fun for some people. The old conviction that the academic life was the ideal definitely began to fray at the edges"

G-20 conference in Pittsburgh, youtube video

I participated in a conference on "Renewing Globalization and Economic Growth in a Post-Crisis World: The Future of the G-20 Agenda" which was organized on September 23 ahead of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh by the Carnegie Mellon University and Atlantic Council. I participated in a first conference panel on innovation and contributed a text on "The Post-Crisis World and the New Growth Agenda for New Europe" which was published in the conference report.

The whole panel is on youtube here

IV Kongres Obywatelski; article on the Golden Age of Poland (in Polish)

Yesterday I spoke on a panel on "The priorities for Poland's economic development until 2030" which was part of a big IV Citizens Congress. My speech was based on a article published by the Polish daily Dziennik/Gazeta Prawna on October 8 "To moze byc nowy zloty wiek polskiej gospodarki".

The moderator of the panel, Krzysztof Rybinski, also published a very interesting article.

The Coming Golden Age of New Europe

Washington DC based think-tank CEPA (Central European Policy Analysis) has just published my paper on the Coming Golden Age of New Europe. I am still hoping that I can turn this paper into a book soon. It seems that while there are quite a lot of books on the growth prospecsts in Asia and Latin America, there is very little about New Europe comprising new EU member states.