Friday, April 24, 2009

Latin America's Finance Minister of the Year

Velasco, 48, applied the lessons learned from decades of economic failure in Latin America -- ones he said could also help the U.S. The current crisis followed “a massive regulatory failure in many advanced financial markets over the last decade or so,” Velasco said in an interview April 21 in his office overlooking the presidential palace in downtown Santiago...

Velasco, who runs 30 miles (48.3 kilometers) a week, is the son and grandson of national politicians. He received his higher education while living in the U.S. after Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship exiled his father from Chile in 1976 for criticizing the regime. Velasco earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and economics in 1982 and a master’s in international relations in 1984 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, according to his resume. He received a doctorate in economics from Columbia University in New York in 1989....

Velasco taught economics for most of the 1990s at NYU, according to his resume. From 2000 to 2006 he was a professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked with Lawrence Summers, now U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council director.

In this world, there are some people who are smart. There are some that are practical,” said Summers. “Andres Velasco is both.”...

Velasco “was always looking for the policy implications of what he was doing, which is very unique,” said Guillermo Calvo, a Columbia macroeconomist who hired Velasco as a teaching assistant. “He was one of the best, but you always sensed that he was going to eventually converge to politics.”

Summers, Calvo and Velasco will be panelists tomorrow at a seminar in Washington examining the effects of the global economic meltdown on Latin America.

-Harvard Peso Doctor Vindicated as Chile Evades Slump

Assorted

Is China souring on the dollar?

The Reeducation of Tim Geithner

The monetary-policy maze

Taleb on the Fourth Quadrant

Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say

On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say;

Chapter 2- Why Inflation Targeting?
Chapter 3- IT Framework Design Parameters

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Singapore helps Lao in PFM

Singapore’s best practices in treasury, tax and customs will be shared with senior policy makers and officials from Lao PDR in a two-year capacity-building programme supported by Temasek Foundation, Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and the World Bank, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, Lao PDR. There will be policy roundtable discussions and workshops to enable the policy makers and treasury, tax and customs officers to acquire new knowledge and skills.

Ex-senior officials from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Singapore Customs and the Ministry of Finance of Singapore will be roped in to share their experience, and help Lao’s Ministry of Finance to adapt best practices in policies, systems and processes to the Lao context.

Temasek Foundation
is supporting the programme with a S$1.15 million grant, with additional funding by World Bank at S$950,000





The Ministry of Finance of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic to Tap Into Singapore’s Expertise in Public Finance Modernisation and Governance;
This is the first ever tripartite collaboration between SCE, WB and Temasek Foundation. Increasing, International Organisations (IOs) have approached SCE to share Singapore’s developmental experience with their client countries.

Mr. Alphonsus Chia, Chief Executive Officer of SCE added: “We are happy that Singapore’s developmental experience has been recognised by International Organisations (IOs) like the World Bank and Temasek Foundation. SCE is pleased to partner the IOs to participate in more public sector led projects in this region. We hope that this programme will lead to more collaboration between Singapore and Lao PDR. Through greater understanding of the needs of the foreign governments and the types of expertise available, SCE hopes to contribute more meaningfully in development projects.”

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Qualities of a Budget Chief

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) says of Orszag, "The No. 1 qualification for a budget chief is command of details. And he has that in spades. This is a man who doesn't just read a spreadsheet, he lives a spreadsheet."

-Budget Chief Peter Orszag: Obama's 'Super-Nerd'

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Assorted

Causes of the Oil Shock of 2007-08

Japan’s recovery

Government deficits through fiscal policy and inter-generational justice

Mongolian government takes action to support small businesses (or Inspections Gone Wild)


To regulate finance, try the market

Consumer confidence indices: further economic deterioration

Why the GST is a good idea

Taylor rule and liquidity trap


The GPT That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Fed Confronts Financial Crisis by Expanding Its Role as Lender of Last Resort

World Economic Prospects -World Bank



South Asia (SAR) has been marked down to 3.7 percent growth for 2009 from 5.4 percent anticipated earlier—and down from 5.6 percent registered in 2008. Though terms of trade have moved in favor of the region with the falloff in oil prices, weakening demand in export markets (including burgeoning Indo-Sino trade) is being felt sharply, as is a tempering of services exports from India’s high-tech centers, as capital spending wanes globally. Remittances are anticipated to ease as conditions in host countries falter, albeit with some lag. Capital inflows have diminished, contributing to falloff in investment growth, notably in India. Fiscal support for slowing economies may face constraints in already quite high budget deficits.

External financing requirements for developing countries as a group are anticipated to increase to $1.3 trillion in 2009, comprised of current account deficits ($330 billion) and principal repayments on private debt coming due ($970 billion). With a decline in capital flows to developing countries underway, this would generate an estimated financing gap of between $270-$700 billion, depending on the size of roll-over risks and the magnitude of capital flight. Regions with the largest funding gaps are Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the current projections, 84 of 109 developing countries would face financing gaps, in most cases too large to cover by drawing down reserves alone. This suggests that in the absence of sufficient international support, countries could be forced into generating a sharp reversal in current account balance, implying further decline in domestic demand and imports.

Debates regarding the possible “shape” of recovery from the current downturn continue. But there is little question that the outlook for 2010 in particular, is surrounded by extreme uncertainty across a wide array of policy- and other variables that will eventually bring about a revival in economic activity. The pronounced cycle in worldwide investment could have sufficient dynamic to carry global growth back to positive territory by 2010, as the pace of decline in investment moderates, and postponed demand for durable consumer goods begins to catch up. Together with the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus this results in the modest global recovery in the baseline forecast presented here.

However, continued banking problems or even new waves of tension in financial markets could lead to stagnation in global GDP or even to another year of decline in 2010. In all cases, the estimated output gap1 would increase in 2010 because (in the baseline as well), growth falls well short of potential (figure 1.e). This implies that unemployment and fiscal deficits will increase further into 2010, in high-income and developing countries alike, while disinflationary conditions could persist well into the year.



World Economic Prospects 2009

The Budget- Dept of Parliament of Whores edition

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - Overseas Contingency Operations Budget
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The Ever Spending Story
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Moment of Zen - More Charts
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All the discussion you need on The Budget is here at Economist Mum

Peter Orszag on The Daily Show

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Peter Orszag Pt. 1
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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Peter Orszag Pt. 2
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