IMF SEMINAR EVENT
DATE: April 19, 2015
DAY: Sunday
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
LOCATION: IMF HQ2, Conference Hall 2
Overview
The last forty years have witnessed an unprecedented peacetime growth in public debt. Furthermore, debt reduction in many countries will have to take place against a backdrop of growing adjustment fatigue, as well has long-term structural changes to the global economic environment, including deteriorating demographics, rising inequality and weakening growth prospects.
The high-level panel will discuss the political economy of high debt in the context of the economic and social challenges facing policymakers over coming decades. The discussion will take a long-term perspective and try to identify the enduring political lessons from successful fiscal consolidations. Panelists will focus on the consolidation challenges facing high-debt countries and the potential political constraint imposed by weakening political support for adjustment among voters. The panel will also consider the merits of sovereign debt restructuring, and look beyond public debt ratios to examine the totality of fiscal risks facing countries.
The panel is the highlight of the sixth annual IMF Fiscal Forum—a network of senior officials from ministries of finance from the major economies of the world.
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Video: The Political Economy of High Debt
Video: The Politics of Adjustment
Video: The Politics of High Debt: Future Challenges
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Fiscal Forum “The Political Economy of High Debt”
Fiscal Forum “The Political Economy of High Debt”
Panelists
Moderator: David Wessel
David Wessel is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. The center provides independent, non-partisan analysis of fiscal and monetary policy issues in order to further public understanding and to improve the quality and effectiveness of those policies. He joined Brookings in December 2013 after 30 years on the staff of The Wall Street Journal, where most recently he was Economics Editor and author of the weekly Capital Column. He is still a contributing correspondent to The Wall Street Journal and appears frequently on NPR’s Morning Edition.
(As of April 2016)
Panelist: Maria Luis Albuquerque
Panelist: Helen Clark
Panelist: Christine Lagarde
Christine Lagarde has been Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since July 2011. She held various ministerial positions within the French government, including Finance and Economy Minister (2007–11), Minister for Foreign Trade, and Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. She was also Chairman of the Global Executive Committee and Global Strategic Committee of Baker & McKenzie.