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Press Briefing by Julie Kozack, Director, Communications Department

Julie Kozack, Communications Department Director of the IMF discusses Argentina, the Caribbean, Lebanon, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Syria, Ukraine and more.

World Economic Outlook Update, January 2025: Three Essential Questions

We project global economic growth at 3.3% this year and next. Learn how policymakers can address challenges and boost growth in the latest World Economic Outlook Update.

Podcasts

Elizabeth Johnson on Fixing São Paulo’s Housing Deficit
December 19, 2024

As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, affordable housing is a rare commodity in many cities. São Paulo­, South America’s biggest city, has gained over 2 million new residents in the past decade alone. Elizabeth Johnson heads Brazil research at TS Lombard and has been studying São Paulo’s latest attempt at strengthening its housing strategy. In this podcast, Johnson says the city looked to its largely abandoned downtown core to address its housing woes. Transcript

Read the article in the IMF's Finance and Development Magazine

Deniz Igan on The Housing Affordability Crunch
December 12, 2024

While housing markets play a significant role in economies, new research shows houses across 40 countries are less affordable than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. IMF economist Deniz Igan helped develop the Housing Affordability Index. In this podcast, she says the pandemic triggered an unusual sequence of events that housing markets around the world are still struggling to correct. Transcript

Read the article in the IMF's Finance and Development Magazine

Driving Change: Ipek Ilkkaracan on Why Investing in Care Pays Off
December 4, 2024

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up

The International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empirical research, especially in developing countries. IMF Podcasts has partnered with the IEA-WE to produce a special series featuring the economists behind the invaluable local research that informs policymakers in places often overlooked. Driving Change kicks off this limited-run series from Turkey, with economist Ipek Ilkkaracan, who makes a strong business case for investing in social care infrastructure. Transcript

Other episodes include Kenyan economist Rose Ngugi, whose indices help local counties design policies that work, and Colombian economics Professor Marcela Eslava, whose research looks to fix Latin America’s dysfunctional social security network.

Special thanks to IEA-WE editor Navika Mehta for this collaboration.