At the recent gatherings of the worlds' senior policy makers and bankers in Washington DC, an IGA financial policy panel provided an oasis for deeper reflection on some of today's pressing policy issues. IGA Director, Professor Erik Berglof, introduced the Rethinking Global Finance project, the framework for much of our research in this area. Mario I. Blejer, Visiting Professor at IGA, spoke about the diverging monetary policy objectives of advanced and emerging economies. He also discussed Argentina's successful policy turnaround under the Macri government and possible political economy risks going forward. Associate Professor Keyu Jin, Department of Economics, considered how financial and trade liberalisation will impact financial stability in EMEs operating under financial friction including state ownership? Piroska Nagy-Mohacsi of LSE IGA discussed some critical economics of the "debt overhang" both in advanced and emerging economies, and possible policy implications. We also had a guest, Philip Turner of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a long-time research collaborator with IGA panel members, who spoke about cross-border capital flows and related, and diverging monetary policy stance(s) among the key central banks of the advanced world (Federal Reserve, ECB, and Japan).
LSE IGA also led workshops on our Middle Income Trap and the Beneficial Ownership projects, and IGA Director Erik Berglof presented at various fora. We also participated in a number of policy workshops. Many discussions focussed on the "crisis" of central banking, including the increasing negative net impact of quantitative easing, and concerns about policy makers "running of out ammunition" to tackle stubbornly low growth and productivity after eight years of the global financial crisis. Structural transformations and reforms to boost productivity would be in order, but were unlikely in the current climate of rising populism and backlash against globalisation and expert "elites".