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IMF SEMINAR EVENT

DATE: April 13, 2016

DAY: Wednesday

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

LOCATION: George Washington University, Lisner Auditorium

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Overview

Women comprise a little more than half the world’s population, yet significant gender gaps in labor markets constrain their contribution to measured economy activity and growth. Earlier IMF research pointed to the importance of increasing female participation as part of the economic recipe to boost growth prospects in a wide range of countries, including many advanced economies. Most recent research by the IMF suggests that more women in senior corporate positions may also improve firms’ financial performance. Despite significant progress in recent decades, progress toward gender equality is hampered by gaps in participation in the labor force, earnings, and the limited number of women in senior positions. This panel of experts will examine the role that women’s role in the labor market plays in overall growth and stability. But the debate doesn’t end in the corporate sector. New research also shows that public policy may have just as much a role to play as personal choice in women’s decision to work. How does tax policy play an unintended role in keeping women out of the labor force?

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Getting Down to Business Women, Work and the Global Economy

Getting Down to Business Women, Work and the Global Economy

Panelists

Moderator: Katty Kay

Katty Kay is the lead anchor of BBC World News America and was previously the BBC News Washington correspondent. She is a frequent contributor on American politics on US TV networks. Kay is a Board Member at the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). She is the co-author, with Claire Shipman, of two New York Times bestsellers examining the role of women in the workforce, Womenomics and The Confidence Code.

Panelist: Winnie Byanyima

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director at Oxfam International, is a world-renowned women’s rights leader and a global authority on economic inequality.

Winnie continues to support social justice movements  around the world, and has spearheaded Oxfam’s global research and advocacy on economic inequality and gender inequality.  She has acted as Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum, participated in the IMF Fiscal Forum and served on the United Nations (UN) High-Level Panels on Access to Medicines and on Women’s Economic Empowerment. She is also a global ambassador for the Open Government Partnership and was recently appointed to serve on ILO’S Global Commission

Panelist: David Lipton

Mr. David Lipton has been First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in 2011. Before coming to the Fund, he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the White House. Previously, he served as Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury.

Panelist: Sahar Nasr

Sahar Nasr is Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation. Nasr a Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo and a former lead economist in the World Bank’s Finance and Private Sector Development department, has over 60 publications in the fields of financial reform, the labor market, women empowerment, and economic legislation.

Panelist: Lant Pritchett

Lant Pritchett is Professor of the Practice of International Development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In addition he is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Global Development and he has been co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. He has been engaged in policy dialogue and projects with governments and civil society around the world, both with the World Bank and as a consultant while at Harvard, including some time as adviser to Google.org. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1983 with a B.S. in Economics and in 1988 from MIT with a PhD in Economics. After finishing at MIT he joined the World Bank, where he held a number of positions. In addition he has authored over 50 papers published in refereed journals.

(As of April 2016)

Panelist: Laura Tyson

Laura Tyson is a Professor and Director of the Institute for Business and Social Impact at the Berkeley Haas School of Business. She served as Dean of London Business School from 2002-2006 and as Dean of Berkeley-Haas from 1998-2001. Tyson was a member of the US Department of State Foreign Affairs Policy Board and a member of President Obama’s Council of Jobs and Competitiveness and the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. She served in the Clinton Administration as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (1993-1995) and as Director of the National Economic Council (1995 – 1996). She is a member of the Board of Directors of Morgan Stanley, AT&T, CBRE Group Inc. and Silver Spring Networks. She is an economic advisory board member of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.