February 8th, Wednesday 2023
Zoom and In-Person
This study supports national planners at determining the types and magnitudes of interventions, and the specific population groups that should be targeted to achieve a desired reduction in the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) efficiently. In the post COVID era, survey data and MPI methods aim to assess the impacts of COVID-19 on multidimensional poverty. This study proposes models guiding policymakers on the path to recovery from COVID-19 (or any other emerging crisis) and toward meeting the 2030 Agenda Goals, thus ensuring efficient policy action and efficient resource allocation.
Speakers:
Vladimir Hlasny, economic affairs officer with UN-ESCWA (Beirut), Poverty and inequality research team. Previously an associate professor of Economics at Ewha Womans University (Seoul). His work is on labor market conditions and the distribution of economic outcomes in Asia and the Middle East. His research has been published in general-interest journals including the World Bank Economic Review, Review of Income and Wealth, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Development and Change, and Social Science Quarterly. PhD in Economics from Michigan State University.
Hassan Hamie, economist with UN-ESCWA (Beirut), Poverty and inequality research team. Previously worked as an engineer for the Lebanese Petroleum Administration. Currently working on the topics of poverty, Inequality and inclusive development. PhD in Energy Economics from Technical University of Vienna.
Discussant:
Paul Makdissi is a professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Ottawa. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality. Previously he has held positions at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands). His main areas of research are socioeconomic health inequality measurement, the distributive impact of taxation and public pricing, and income inequality measurement. He was the president of the Société canadienne de science économique (the French Canadian economics association) for the 2021-2022 academic year. From 2017 to 2019, he was the thematic leader for the Equity and Inclusive Growth research theme for the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey. He has also been a consultant for many federal and provincial ministries and agencies in Canada, the World Bank, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
Linda Tsao Yang is an ambassador (retired). Linda Tsao Yang served as U.S. Executive Director to the board of the Asian Development Bank in Manila from 1993 to1999. She was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1993, the first woman and the first minority to represent the United States on the board of a multilateral financial institution. Yang Is Chair Emerita of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) based in Hong Kong which she chaired from 2001 to 2014. From 2003 to 2010, she served on the board of the Bank of China (Hong Kong) – one of three banknote issuing banks in Hong Kong – as an independent non-executive director. Earlier in her career, she was the first minority appointed to serve as California’s Savings and Loan Commissioner; she was also the first minority appointed to the board of the California Public Employees Retirement System ( CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States. She was Vice-Chairman of the Investment Committee of the board and was unanimously elected by her fellow board members to the position of Vice President of the Board.Yang was an invited panelist on International Economy at the economic summit led by then President-elect Clinton in Little Rock, Arkansas in December 1992.
Chantale Wong has had a long and distinguished career in public service, currently serving as the US Executive Director to the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Wong is the first out lesbian and first LGBTQ+ person of color appointed to an ambassador-level position in US history, confirmed by the senate in February 2022. Previously, Wong was appointed by President Obama to serve as Vice President for Administration and Finance, and Chief Financial Officer at the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Earlier in her career, Wong has held leadership positions at the Office of Management and Budget, Departments of Treasury and Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency, in addition to NASA. Chantale joined the staff of the Asian Development Bank in 1999 as an environmental specialist to ensure the Bank’s assessments complied with their environmental and social policies. She led development and publication of ADB’s first Asian Environment Outlook (2001), and was subsequently appointed by President Bill Clinton to its Board of Directors, representing the US as the Alternate Executive Director to oversee operations. Wong was the founding chair of the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL), an organization dedicated to encouraging careers in public service by providing training, workshops, mentors, and work opportunities for young AAPIs.
Julia Chang Bloch is founding president of the US-China Education Trust. She was the first US ambassador of Asian descent in US history. She has had an extensive career in international affairs and government service, beginning in 1964 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia and culminating as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal in 1989. From 1981 to 1988, Ambassador Bloch served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator of Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East, positions appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. She also was the Chief Minority Counsel to a Senate Select Committee; a Senate professional staff member; the Deputy Director of the Office of African Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency; a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and an Associate of the U.S.- Japan Relations Program of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.
Dr. Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Global Health Governance roundtable series. He is also a professor and the director of global health studies at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, where he developed the first academic concentration among U.S. professional schools of international affairs that explicitly addresses the security and foreign policy aspects of health issues. He is the founding editor of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm.
Dr. Sekhar Bonu joined as the Director General of Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) in April 2019. The Government established DMEO in September 2015 as an attached office of the NITI Aayog to fulfil the monitoring and evaluation mandates assigned to NITI Aayog. Before joining NITI Aayog, Dr. Bonu worked with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila for 15 years. At ADB, he worked in health, urban infrastructure development and regional cooperation, mainly in South Asia. Dr. Bonu worked in the Indian Administrative Services and served as a civil servant in Rajasthan between 1987-2003, among others, as district magistrate, director of primary and secondary education, chief executive officer of state-owned Enterprises. Dr. Sekhar Bonu has a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder. He has a wide range of research and operational interests and has published in peer-review journals.
Christian Oldiges is a Development Economist, currently serving as Policy Specialist at the Inclusive Growth team of UNDP/BPPS, New York. He brings more than 10 years of experience in the fields of development economics, policy advocacy and social protection. Previously, as Director of Policy Research at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, he has been directly involved in developing national MPIs with governments in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In postdoctoral studies at Oxford, he has written about how 270 million people moved out of multidimensional poverty in India within a decade, poverty reduction and its interlinkages with COVID-19, migration, and conflict, as well as on workfare programs and food security in India. He holds a PhD in Economics (Heidelberg University, Germany) and has studied at Hindu College and the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University.
William White is currently a Senior Fellow at the C D Howe Institute in Toronto. From 2009 until March 2018, he served as Chair of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the OECD in Paris. Prior to that, he spent fourteen years as Economic Adviser at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel. In that role, he was responsible for all BIS research, data collection, and the organization of meetings for central bankers from around the world. Before joining the BIS in 1994, he was the Deputy Governor responsible for international affairs at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa.
Martha Finnemore is University Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on global governance, international organizations, cybersecurity, ethics, and social theory. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a non-resident scholar at the Cyber Policy Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has been a visiting research fellow at the Brookings Institution and Stanford University, and has received fellowships or grants from the MacArthur Foundation, DoD’s Minerva Research Initiative, the Social Science Research Council, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace.
Sunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, Sunil was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, he was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Sunil has a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, a M.A. from the Delhi School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honors) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He has published widely on economic and financial topics, and his current interests include governance, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.
Sunil Sharma is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, and a Senior Associate at the Council on Economic Policies, Zurich, Switzerland. He was Assistant Director in the IMF’s Research Department from 2015-2018, and the Director of the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) in Singapore from 2006-2015. Before moving to Singapore in 2006, he was Chief of the IMF Institute’s Asian Division in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the IMF in 1992, Dr. Sharma was on the Economics faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Cornell University, and his current interests include rethinking capitalism and democracy, systemic hazards, complex systems, the international financial architecture, and the institutional structure and design of financial regulation.
Nicoletta Batini is the Lead Evaluator of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Independent Evaluation Office. Prior to the IMF, she was Advisor of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey, and Director of the International Economics and Policy Office of the Treasury in Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in international finance (S.S.S.U.P. S. Anna) and a Ph.D. in monetary economics (University of Oxford). Today her research focuses on the economics of energy and land and sea use transitions for climate mitigation. Her new book “The Economics of Sustainable Food: Smart Policies for People and the Planet” was just published by Island Press and the International Monetary Fund.
Bruce Friedrich is co-founder and executive director of the Good Food Institute. With branches in the United States, India, Israel, Brazil, Europe, and Asia Pacific, GFI is accelerating the production of plant-based and cultivated meat in order to bolster the global protein supply while protecting our environment, promoting global health, and preventing food insecurity. Bruce oversees GFI’s global strategy, working with directors and international managing directors to ensure that GFI is maximally effective at delivering mission-focused results. Bruce graduated from Georgetown Law and also holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Economics. Bruce was named 2021 “American Food Hero” by @EatingWell Magazine.
Ann Florini is Clinical Professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, where she directs programs at the Washington, DC campus. She was previously Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University; founding Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalization at the National University of Singapore; and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has spearheaded numerous international initiatives on global governance, energy and climate policy, and cross-sector collaborations involving government, civil society and the private sector. Her many books and articles have addressed governance in China, transparency in governance, transnational civil society networks, and the role of the private sector in public affairs. Dr. Florini received her Ph.D. in Political Science from UCLA and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University.
Laveesh Bhandari is a Senior Fellow at CSEP. Laveesh will lead and develop the climate change capability at CSEP. In addition, he will help define the broad macro agenda and advise on the sub-national reform. Dr Bhandari is an economist, entrepreneur and an environmentalist. He is currently the Director of Indicus Foundation and leads its Environment and Sustainable Livelihoods initiative. Laveesh has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics in Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of Journal of Emerging Market Finance, and worked at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. He has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics and digital domain.
Jonathan Rothbaum is a research economist in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. He works on the integration of administrative data into the production of income, resource, and wellbeing statistics. His research has focused on nonresponse, measurement error, and data quality in income surveys and on using surveys to study intergenerational mobility in the United States. Prior to joining the Census Bureau in 2013, Rothbaum received his doctorate in economics from George Washington University.
Dr. Danny Leipziger is Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is concurrently the Managing Director of the Growth Dialogue. Professor Leipziger has been a faculty member in the highly-ranked International Business Department since 2009, where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses on macroeconomics, applied development, financial crises, and international economics, and he has taught in the GW/IFC/Milken Capital Markets Graduate Program for mid-career government officials since its inception. He has been advisor to the governments of South Korea, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Argentina, and South Africa, among others.
Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center, Yale University. She is a co-editor of American Economic Review: Insights. Pande’s research is largely focused on how formal and informal institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic and political advantage in society, particularly in developing countries. She is interested in the role of public policy in providing the poor and disadvantaged political and economic power, and how notions of economic justice and human rights can help justify and enable such change. Her most recent work focuses on testing innovative ways to make the state more accountable to its citizens, such as strengthening women’s economic and political opportunities, ensuring that environmental regulations reduce harmful emissions, and providing citizens effective means to voice their demand for state services. In 2018, Pande received the Carolyn Bell Shaw Award from the American Economic Association for promoting the success of women in the economics profession. She is the co-chair of the Political Economy and Government Group at Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a Board member of Bureau of Research on Economic Development (BREAD) and a former co-editor of The Review of Economics and Statistics. Before coming to Yale, Pande was the Rafik Harriri Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, where she co-founded Evidence for Policy Design. Pande received a Ph.D. in economics from London School of Economics, a BA/MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a BA in Economics from Delhi University.
Jayati Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly 35 years. From January 2020 she will join the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. She has authored and/or edited 19 books (including “Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women’s Work in Globalising India”, Women Unlimited, New Delhi 2009; the co-edited “Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development, 2014, “Demonetisation Decoded”, Routledge 2017 and “Women workers in the informal economy”, Routledge forthcoming) and nearly 200 scholarly articles. She has received several prizes, including for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India in 2015; the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2010; the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010, Italy. She has advised governments in India and other countries, including as Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Commission on Farmers’ Welfare in 2004, and Member of the National Knowledge Commission of India (2005-09). She is the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates, an international network of heterodox development economists. She has consulted for international organisations including ILO, UNDP, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNRISD and UN Women and is member of several international commissions, including the International Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) and the Commission for Global Economic Transformation of INET. She writes regularly for popular media like newspapers, journals and blogs.
James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.
Ajay Chhibber is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute of International Economic Policy, George Washington University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He was earlier Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, Government of India and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), India. He held senior positions at the UN as Assistant Secretary General and Assistant Administrator, UNDP and managed their program for Asia and the Pacific. He also served in senior positions at the World Bank. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University, a Masters from the Delhi School of Economics. He taught at Georgetown University and at the University of Delhi.
Bina Agarwal is Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK, and former Professor and Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. She has been President, International Society for Ecological Economics; Vice-President, International Economic Association; President, International Society for Feminist Economics; and held distinguished positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Minnesota, and the New York University School of Law. Dr. Agarwal’s publications include the multiple award-winning book, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Gender and Green Governance (OUP, 2010) and Gender Challenges (OUP, 2016), a three volume compendium of her selected papers on Agriculture, Property, and the Environment. Her pioneering work on gender inequality in property and land and on environmental governance, has had global impact. Her many awards include a Padma Shri, 2008; book prizes; the Leontief Prize 2010; Louis Malassis Scientific Prize 2017; and the International Balzan Prize, 2017.
Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and the founding Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ) at Tulane University. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue. Professor Lustig’s research focuses on economic development, inequality and social policies with emphasis on Latin America. Her recent publication Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty is a step-by-step guide to assessing the impact of taxation and social spending on inequality and poverty in developing countries. Prof. Lustig is a founding member and President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and was a co-director of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000, Attacking Poverty. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Inequality and is a member of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality’s Executive Council. Prof. Lustig served on the Atkinson Commission on Poverty, the High-level Group on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress, and the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Guido Neidhöfer is an advanced researcher in the Labor Markets and Human Resources department at ZEW Mannheim, Germany, as well as a fellow at the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (CIDER), visiting scholar at the Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS) of the National University of La Plata, and an associated researcher of the Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Humano (CEDH) of the Universidad de San Andres in Argentina. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of economic inequality, social mobility, education and migration.
Stephen B. Kaplan is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. Professor Kaplan’s research and teaching interests focus on the frontiers of international and comparative political economy, where he specializes in the political economy of global finance and development, the rise of China in the Western Hemisphere, and Latin American politics.
Dr. Michael C. Wolfson received his B.Sc with honours from University of Toronto jointly in mathematics, computer science and economics in 1971, and then a Ph.D. from Cambridge in economics in 1977. He retired as Assistant Chief Statistician, Analysis and Development (which included the Health Statistics program and the central R&D function) at Statistics Canada in 2009. He was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Modeling in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa for 2010-2017. Prior to joining Statistics Canada, he held increasingly senior positions in the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Department of Finance, the Privy Council Office, the House of Commons, and the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office. While a senior public servant, he was also a founding Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program in Population Health (1988-2003). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a member of the recently created Canadian Statistics Advisory Council.
Jennifer G. Cooke is director of the Institute for African Studies at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. The Institute serves as central for research, scholarly discussion, and debate on issues relevant to Africa. She is a professor of practice in international affairs, teaching courses on U.S. Policy Toward Africa and Transnational Security Threats in Africa. Cooke joined George Washington University in August 2018, after 18 years as director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she led research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. While at CSIS, Cooke directed projects on a wide range of African issues, including on violent extremist organizations in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, China’s growing role in Africa, democracy and elections in Nigeria, religion and state authority in Africa, “stress-testing” state stability in Africa, Africa’s changing energy landscape, and more. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and has provided briefing, commentary, and testimony to the media, US Congress, AFRICOM leadership and the U.S. military. She has traveled widely in Africa and has been an election observer in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria. As a teenager, she lived in Cote d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic. She holds an M.A. in African studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.
Andrew Tiffin is a senior economist at the IMF, working in the regional studies division of the Fund’s African Department. He is also keenly involved in the effort to incorporate artificial intelligence/machine-learning techniques into the standard analytical toolkit of the Fund. Previously, he has worked on Middle Eastern countries, with a particular interest in refugee issues in Jordan and Lebanon, as well as numerous countries in Europe–he was part of the Italy team during the debt crisis of 2012, and part of the Russia team for the global financial crisis of 2008. Raised in Sydney, Andrew is an Australian national. He received his post-graduate training at Princeton University, where he obtained both a Ph.D. in economics and an M.P.A. in international relations. In addition to his work with the Fund, Andrew has held positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia, and with the Australian Government.
Louise Fox is an experienced development economist who specializes in strategies for employment creation, opportunity expansion, economic empowerment, and poverty reduction. She has advised governments in the developed and developing world, international organizations, and philanthropic and non-profit organizations on problem diagnosis, strategies for results, and outcome measurement. She held full-time positions at USAID (as Chief Economist) and at the World Bank. She is currently affiliated with the African Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution and the Blum Center for Developing Economies, University of California, Berkeley. She was previously affiliated with the Overseas Development Institute, where she led a major research project. Louise has published in the areas of inclusive growth, structural transformation, youth employment, the political economy of poverty reduction, gender and women’s economic empowerment, employment, labor markets, and labor regulation, pension reform, reform of child welfare systems, social protection, effective public expenditures in the social sectors, and female-headed households and child welfare. Her most recent book was Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, published by the World Bank in 2014.
Seung Mo Choi is a Senior Economist working on regional surveillance in the IMF’s African Department. He has worked on banking crises, financial market policies, climate change, low-income country issues, and capacity development, including in the IMF’s European Department and in the Institute for Capacity Development. His research has been published in economics and finance journals such as International Economic Review. Prior to joining the IMF, he worked as an Assistant Professor at Washington State University and obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in economics from Seoul National University.
Stephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. In 2018 he was UNICEF Senior Fellow at the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, Florence, Italy. Smith received his Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University and has been a Fulbright Research Scholar, a Jean Monnet Research Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, a member of the Advisory Council of BRAC USA, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. He has twice served as Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at GWU. Smith is the co-author with Michael Todaro of Economic Development (12th Edition, Pearson, 2014). He is also author of Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works (paperback edition Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and co-editor with Jennifer Brinkerhoff and Hildy Teegen of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He is also author or coauthor of about 45 professional journal articles and many other publications. Smith’s recent research has focused on extreme poverty and strategies and programs to address it; and on the economics of adaptation and resilience to climate change in low-income countries, emphasizing autonomous adaptation by households and communities and its effects, and adaptation financing.
Preya Sharma is a senior economist in the African Department of the IMF where she is Special Assistant to the Director. Her research has focused on structural transformation, the future of work, and digitalization in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as emerging market crises and development. Before joining the IMF she was the Head of Emerging Markets at HM Treasury in the UK. She holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
