IMF Seminar: Boosting Growth with Domestic Resources: How to Pay for It All

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IMF SEMINAR EVENT

DATE: October 12, 2023

DAY: Thursday

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM

LOCATION: AA02 Al Karaouine

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Overview

Amid record high debt levels and rising costs of servicing debt, many countries face growing pressures to raise additional resources to sustain the role of the public sector. The panel will focus on the need to boost revenues, reprioritize expenditure and deepen domestic funding markets, to support essential spending across the membership, and to meet new and emerging commitments (infrastructure, green transition, security, ageing, industrial policies). The discussion will consider how to raise domestic resources in an economically sustainable manner, that imposes the least economic cost in terms of efficiency. The panel will also examine how to take advantage of emerging digital technologies and revenue sources.

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IMF Seminar: Boosting Growth with Domestic Resources: How to Pay for It All

Panelists

Panelist: Gita Gopinath

Gita Gopinath is the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She oversees the work of staff, represents the Fund at multilateral forums, leads the Fund’s work on surveillance and related policies, and oversees research and flagship publications. Previously, Ms. Gopinath was the Fund's Chief Economist. In that role, she helmed thirteen releases of the World Economic Outlook. She also worked with other Fund departments on a new analytical approach to help countries respond to international capital flows via the Integrated Policy Framework. Prior to joining the IMF, Ms. Gopinath was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics at Harvard University and before that she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Her research, which focuses on International Finance and Macroeconomics, is widely cited and has been published in many top economics journals. She has authored numerous articles on exchange rates, trade and investment, international financial crises, monetary policy, debt, and emerging market crises.

Full bio

Panelist: Chrystia Freeland

Chrystia Freeland is Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. She was first elected as a Member of Parliament in November 2013, and was re-elected in 2015, 2019, and 2021.

She served as Minister of International Trade from 2015 until January 2017, when she became Minister of Foreign Affairs. In November 2019, she was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, until August 2020, when she became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

An esteemed journalist and author, the Deputy Prime Minister was born in Peace River, Alberta. She was educated at Harvard University before continuing her studies on a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford.

Panelist: Jason Furman

Jason Furman Jason Furman is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Furman engages in public policy through research, writing and teaching in a wide range of areas including U.S. and international macroeconomics, fiscal policy, labor markets and competition policy. Previously Furman served eight years as a top economic adviser to President Obama, including serving as the 28th Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from August 2013 to January 2017, acting as both President Obama’s chief economist and a member of the cabinet. In addition to articles in scholarly journals and periodicals, Furman is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Project Syndicate and the editor of two books on economic policy. Furman holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Panelist: Christian Lindner

Christian Lindner, born on the 7th of January 1979, is Germany’s Federal Minister of Finance and a member of the German parliament (Bundestag). Lindner was elected party leader of the Free Democrats in December 2013. As chairman of the Free Democrats Parliamentary Group (2017-2021) Christian Lindner established a constructive and successful parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. After successful coalition negotiations Christian Lindner became Germany’s Federal Minister of Finance in the first ever three-party coalition on December, 8th 2021.

Lindner joined the FDP in 1995. He was elected as a member of the federal state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia for the first time in 2000. Between 2012 and 2017 Lindner served as parliamentary leader of the FDP group in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Lindner grew up in Wermelskirchen near Cologne. He studied political science, philosophy and public law at the Rheinische Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversity in Bonn.

Panelist: Mohamed Maait

Mohamed Maait is currently serving as the Minister of Finance. Prior to his appointment as a Minister, he held the position of Vice Minister of Finance for Public Treasury Affairs & Head of the Economic Justice Unit. In addition, he served as the First Assistant Minister of Finance for Treasury Affairs in 2015 and as the Assistant Minister of Finance for Pensions and Social Insurance during the period (2009 – 2013). He also held the position of the Assistant Minister of Finance for Actuarial Administration Affairs in (2013) and the position of the First Assistant Minister of Health & Population during the period (2014–2015). Over his career of 33 years, he occupied many positions such as acting Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (2013-2015), Chairman of the Egyptian Governmental Actuarial Department (EGAD) at the Ministry of Finance (2010-2013), Vice Chairman of the National Organization for Social Insurance (2011-2012), and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance (2007- 2009). He was also appointed as the Executive Director of the Egyptian Insurance Institute (2007). Regarding his presence in boards of directors, he is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Africa Reinsurance Corporation since 2021, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian General Authority for Universal Health Insurance since 2018. Moreover, he was appointed as a member of the board of directors in many institutions.

Academically, he holds the title of the Assistant Professor in the Department of Actuarial Science and Insurance in the Faculty of Commerce - Cairo University.He also worked as a senior lecturer and has more than 30 years of teaching and researching experience at many universities in Egypt, Sudan, England and Scotland. Dr. Maait holds a BSc degree in Insurance and Mathematics from Cairo University, Egypt (1984), an MPhil in Insurance from Cairo University, Egypt (1992). He also obtained a Diploma in Actuarial Science in 1996, an MSc in Actuarial Science in 1997, and a PhD degree in Actuarial Science from City University, London, UK (2003). His academic and professional activities were shown in several research papers and publications.

Moderator: Martin Wolf

Martin Wolf is Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 for services to financial journalism. Mr Wolf won the Overseas Press Club of America’s prize for “best commentary on international news in any medium” for 2013 and the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Gerald Loeb Awards. He was a member of the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking in 2010-11 His most recent publication is The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (London and New York: Allen Lane, 2023).

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