## The 26th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference

_IMF News, November 6, 2025_

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## Bibliographic details
- Published: November 6, 2025

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### Overview
- Event: 26th Annual Research Conference
- Speech: Opening Remarks by IMF First Deputy Managing Director, Dan Katz
- Date: November 6, 2025
- Purpose: Introduce the conference theme “The Evolving Landscape of Global Trade and Financial Integration” and frame key questions for research and policy discussion.

### Trade: questions and implications
- Framing:
  - Trade has been a cornerstone of economic development and the rise in global living standards following World War II and the establishment of the Bretton Woods Institutions.
  - Current transformations driven by geopolitics, new technologies, and rethinking of assumptions about international economic integration.
- Core questions posed:
  - When state interventions inhibit economic flexibility and persistently distort comparative advantages, do the gains from trade still hold?
  - Can trade remain a driver of sustainable and balanced growth among countries with fundamentally different models for state influence on the economy?
  - How should economists evaluate trade-offs involved in export controls on advanced technologies like leading edge semiconductors, especially given AI’s potential role in productivity growth?
  - Will increasing use of export controls on legacy inputs (e.g., rare earth magnets) reshape global trade and production more than changes in tariff levels?
- Policy-relevant observations:
  - Tariffs change relative prices and tend to be less distortionary than non-tariff barriers, including quantity interventions like export controls.
  - Export controls that cut off critical inputs risk production shutdowns that could cascade across supply chains and ripple through the economy and the financial system.

### Global imbalances and capital flows
- Context and recent development:
  - The increase in excess imbalances in 2024 was the largest in a decade.
  - Historical reference to the global savings glut “twenty years ago,” when current account deficits widened while fiscal deficits did not.
- Core questions posed:
  - To what extent do domestic macroeconomic imbalances in savings and investment drive external imbalances, and when are domestic actions sufficient to reduce external imbalances?
  - Could causation run both ways, with external imbalances influencing domestic imbalances that are themselves products of other countries’ domestic policies?
  - What should countries do if domestic measures are insufficient to rebalance and other countries are unwilling to address domestic imbalances that cause spillovers?
  - Are capital flows to deficit countries slowing the adjustments needed to address excessive imbalances?
  - How concerned should policymakers be about systemic risks from stock imbalances—net foreign asset positions deviating significantly from sustainable or desirable levels—even if flow imbalances are addressed?
- Policy recommendations implied for discussion:
  - Progress toward investment expansion in Germany and fiscal consolidations in the United Kingdom and the United States as examples of domestic actions that could reduce external imbalances.
  - Consideration of both flow and stock dimensions of external positions in assessing systemic risk.

### Geopolitical fragmentation and economic integration
- Observations:
  - Supply chains are reordering and new trading blocs are emerging; regionalization appears to be on the rise.
  - More stable and harmonious regional relations can be intertwined with closer economic integration.
- Core questions posed:
  - Could deeper integration paradoxically create distortions, disruptions, and vulnerabilities that negatively impact geopolitical stability?
  - To what extent is within-country integration—especially in larger economies with significant internal frictions—a potentially more attractive pathway?
  - Should policymakers differentiate between types of specialization; are there economic activities that a successful modern economy cannot outsource?
  - Could sectoral imbalances, even absent excessive aggregate imbalances, lead to resource misallocation and exacerbate security concerns?
- Policy implications:
  - The degree of security, economic, and political compatibility across neighbors matters for the durability and benefits of integration.
  - Policymakers need to weigh trade-offs between the benefits of integration and potential geopolitical or sectoral vulnerabilities.

### Conference focus and agenda signals
- Research priorities highlighted:
  - Cutting edge research on trade dynamics, global value chains, capital flows, and policy tradeoffs.
  - A modern take on financial repression in the Mundell‑Fleming Lecture.
  - A Policy Panel to bring practitioners and academics together to weigh trade‑offs and political realities.
- Call to action:
  - Participants are encouraged to challenge speakers and one another; the best insights emerge from dialogue across disciplines and perspectives.
  - The Opening Remarks invite follow-on sessions starting with Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti’s first session, “Tariffs and Global Imbalances.”

*Opening Remarks by Dan Katz, First Deputy Managing Director, November 6, 2025.*

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## References

- [Dan Katz, First Deputy Managing Director](https://www.imf.org/en/about/senior-officials/bios/dan-katz)
- [United States and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/USA/index.htm)
- [Speeches](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)
- [PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)
- [IMF’s 26th Annual Research Conference](https://www.imf.org/en/news/seminars/conferences/2025/11/06/2025-jacques-polak-annual-research-conference)
- [https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/11/06/sp-opening-remarks-dan-katz-26th-jacques-polak-annual-research-conference_