IMF Conference

Wednesday, December 4, 2020

10:30 – 10:40 AM

Welcome Remarks by Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF   

Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the IMF since October 1, 2019.

She was CEO of the World Bank from January 2017 to September 2019, during which she also served as Interim President of the World Bank for three months.

She previously served as European Commission Vice President for Budget and Human Resources and as Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

From 1993 to 2010, she held a number of senior positions at the World Bank, including as Vice President and Corporate Secretary in 2008, as Director for Sustainable Development, Director for the Russian Federation (based in Moscow), Director for Environment, and Director for Environment and Social Development for the East Asia and Pacific Region.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, she holds a Ph.D. in Economic Science and a M.A. in Political Economy and Sociology from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia, where she was an Associate Professor between 1977 and 1993. She also was visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

10:40 – 11:25 AM

Presentation by Professor Daron Acemoglu, MIT   

Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor at MIT and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists.

He is the author of five books, including Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty and The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (both with James A. Robinson). His academic work covers a wide range of areas, including political economy, economic development, economic growth, inequality, labor economics and economics of networks.

Daron Acemoglu has received the inaugural T. W. Shultz Prize from the University of Chicago in 2004, and the inaugural Sherwin Rosen Award for outstanding contribution to labor economics in 2004, Distinguished Science Award from the Turkish Sciences Association in 2006, the John von Neumann Award, Rajk College, Budapest in 2007, the Carnegie Fellowship in 2017, the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in 2018, and the Global Economy Prize in 2019.

He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in 2012, and the 2016 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award.

He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Utrecht, the Bosporus University, University of Athens, Bilkent University, the University of Bath, the Ecole Normale Superieure, Saclay Paris, and the London Business School.

11:25 AM – 11:35 PM

Conversation between Kristalina Georgieva and Professor Acemoglu  

11:35 AM – 12:00 PM

Audience Q & A. Questions for the speaker can be sent before or during the event to FADRG@imf.org.