## The Everywhere Economist

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### Career overview and pivotal roles
- Career spans international development, central banking, and academic leadership.
- Key positions and episodes:
  - Worked on Eastern Europe at the World Bank after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
  - Led the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID); became permanent secretary in 2008.
  - At the IMF during the 2009–10 euro area debt crisis, oversaw the Fund’s work on several countries at the epicenter of the upheaval.
  - Ran IMF programs in the Middle East during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.
  - Deputy governor of the Bank of England, overseeing a $500 billion balance sheet, during Britain’s Brexit vote.
  - President of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) for six years.
  - First female president of Columbia University at the age of 60.
  - Became the World Bank’s youngest-ever vice president at the age of 36.

### Social contract, policy proposals, and writing
- Author of the 2021 book What We Owe Each Other, calling for a new social contract in response to demographic and technological change.
- Proposes a stronger “architecture of security and opportunity” including:
  - “constructing a floor below which income cannot fall combined with incentives to work,”
  - “portable pensions linked to life expectancy,”
  - “lifelong education and retraining,”
  - “intervention in early childhood to equalize opportunity.”
- On expanding the book’s scope: would add “a chapter on the international social contract and how to strengthen it.”
- Argues: “People have to believe that they’re in a society in which the architecture of opportunity is fair,” and that national justice makes citizens “more generous towards citizens of other countries.”

### Leadership style and views on institutions, free speech, and civic debate
- Described as combining “tough-mindedness, high intellect, courage, and an aptitude for swaying policymakers.”
- Praised for political intelligence and empathy: “You don’t persuade governments to change policy just by doing good analysis,” and “Minouche is exceedingly good at that.”
- Christine Lagarde: attentive and inclusive leadership; “She supports other people, especially women, when they deserve it. She does not suffer fools gladly but will give everyone a chance.”
- On universities and free speech:
  - Warns that cancel culture threatens free-thinking debate.
  - Advocates “free speech within the law.”
  - Proud that at LSE “no one was barred from speaking because of views that some might consider offensive.”
  - Emphasizes teaching people “to have difficult conversations” and that “It’s through that process of listening that you learn, you build consensus, and you move forward as a community.”

### Middle East, development, and institutions
- Born in Egypt; remains connected through frequent visits and extended family.
- Worked on Middle East issues during the Oslo peace process and again during the Arab Spring; both “started with great optimism and ended in disappointment.”
- Believes the region’s best hope lies in reversing “a steady decline in the independence of parliaments, the courts, central banks, civil society, and a free press.”
- Stresses that “strong institutions” are what “make sure whatever kind of leadership you have works in the public interest.”
- Confident about the region’s youth, history, and potential; “The laws of economics apply in the Middle East and North Africa just like they apply everywhere.”

### DFID, aid, and the international system
- Spent seven years at DFID; as permanent secretary in 2008 oversaw legislation committing to spend at least 0.7 percent of gross national income on official development assistance.
- That commitment “worked out to an annual budget of about $20 billion.”
- Views DFID’s single-minded focus on reducing world poverty as key to its success; critical that the department was later folded into the Foreign Office and the aid commitment watered down.
- Warns the international system faces significant pressure: “Aid budgets have been slashed, Russia’s war in Ukraine and geopolitical tensions threaten to cripple multilateral organizations, and rising interest rates are piling pressure on heavily indebted developing economies.”
- Argues it is vital that countries “continue to carve out a space for international cooperation, especially on global public goods like climate, pandemic preparedness, and financial stability.”

### Brexit, Bank of England, and crisis preparedness
- Three years at the Bank of England coincided with the UK’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
- Recounts watching markets as the pound slid and recalls accusations of “Project Fear” against the Bank for its economic warnings.
- Assesses the Bank’s main contribution as contingency planning to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability irrespective of political outcomes: “We were able to say that we had liquidity facilities in place should any institution need them,” and “because we had prepared and were able to reassure the markets, no support was needed.”
- Left the Bank of England in 2017 for academia.

### Personal background and formative experiences
- Born in 1962; in 1966 at age four, Shafik and her family fled President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt for the United States, settling in Savannah, Georgia.
- Family experienced both downward and upward social mobility; these experiences shaped her interest in social mobility and fairness.
- Education:
  - Undergraduate degree in economics and politics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
  - Master’s in economics, LSE.
  - Doctorate in economics, Oxford.
- Personal life:
  - Married scientist Raffael Jovine in 2002 in Washington; had twins and became stepmother to his three children in the same year.

*Finance & Development, September 2023*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/september/pie-minouche-shafik.pdf_