The Anniversary Conference speakers – panel discussion ”Fiscal Sustainability Challenge During and After the COVID19 Pandemic"
CASE 30th Anniversary Conference
23-23 September, 2021
Session: Fiscal Sustainability Challenge During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic
Most advanced economies met the COVID-19 crisis having a high level of public debt and unbalanced budgets. The pandemic further increased fiscal deficits and public debt both in absolute terms and in relation to GDP. According to preliminary IMF estimates, in 2020, general government gross debt amounted to 131% of GDP in the United States, 266% of GDP in Japan, 108% of GDP in the United Kingdom, and 95% of GDP in the EU. These are record-high figures in a peace time. Debt statistics in emerging market economies look, on average, better but their macroeconomic room for maneuver is narrower as compared to advanced economies. In 2021, the situation may get worse, due to the continuation of the pandemic and the large fiscal stimulus promised by some governments (for example, in the US).
Against this background, the session will discuss the increasing risks to fiscal sustainability in both advanced and emerging market economies and the strategy of fiscal consolidation in the post-pandemic era.
SPEAKERS: Daniel Gros (Centre for European Policy Studies, Member of the CASE Advisory Council), Leslie Lipschitz (Former Director of the IMF Institute, a Principal at Global Strategic Advisers, LLC), Jan Vincent- Rostowski (Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Poland, co-founder of CASE), Charles Wyplosz (The Graduate Institute in Geneva and Member of the CASE Advisory Council).
MODERATOR: Marek Dąbrowski, co-founder and Fellow at CASE, Non-Resident Scholar at Bruegel, Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Marek Dabrowski is a Non-Resident Scholar at Bruegel, Brussels, Professor of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Co-founder and Fellow at CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research in Warsaw. He was a co-founder of CASE (1991), former Chairman of its Supervisory Council and President of Management Board (1991-2011), Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CASE Ukraine in Kyiv (1999-2009 and 2013-2015), and Member of the Board of Trustees and Scientific Council of the E.T. Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy in Moscow (1996-2016). He also held positions of the First Deputy Minister of Finance of Poland (1989-1990), Member of Parliament (1991-1993) and Member of the Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland (1998-2004). Since the end of 1980s he has been involved in policy advising and policy research in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Somalia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Yemen, and in a number of international research projects related to monetary and fiscal policies, growth and poverty, currency crises, international financial architecture, perspectives of European integration, European Neighborhood Policy and political economy of transition. He has also worked as consultant in a number of EU, World Bank, IMF, UNDP, UNICEF, OECD, GIZ and USAID projects. Fellow under the 2014-2015 Fellowship Initiative of the European Commission – Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs. Member of the Academia Europaea. Author of several academic and policy papers, and editor of several book publications.
Daniel Gros is a Member of the Board and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). He joined CEPS in 1986 and has been the Director of CEPS from 2000 to 2020. Prior to joining CEPS, Daniel worked at the IMF and at the European Commission as economic adviser to the Delors Committee that developed the plans for the euro. Over the last decades, he has been a member of high-level advisory bodies to the French and Belgian governments and has provided advice to numerous central banks and governments, including Greece, the UK, and the US, at the highest political level. Daniel is currently also an adviser to the European Parliament and was a member of the Advisory Scientific Council (ASC) of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) until June 2020. He held a Fulbright fellowship and was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 2020. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He has published extensively on international economic affairs, including on issues related to monetary and fiscal policy, exchange rates, banking. He is the author of several books and editor of Economie Internationale and International Finance. He has taught at several leading European Universities and contributes a globally syndicated column on European economic issues to Project Syndicate.
Leslie Lipschitz is a former Director of the IMF Institute. He has also worked as a senior adviser at Investec Asset Management (now Ninety One asset management), and has taught at the Johns Hopkins University and Bowdoin College. He is currently a principal at Global Strategic Advisers, LLC.
Jan Vincent – Rostowski was appointed Minister of Finance in 2007 in the first cabinet of Donald Tusk serving until 2013 and became Deputy Prime Minister in 2013. In the parliamentary elections in 2011 he was elected to The Sejm as Deputy for Warsaw. Mr Rostowski was the longest serving Minister of Finance in Poland. In 2010 the “Financial Times” voted him the second best and in 2011 and 2012 the third best European Minister of Finance. “Emerging Markets” chose him the best minister of finance of the European emerging markets in 2009 and 2012. In 2015 he became Chief Political Adviser to Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz. From 2015 till present he is the visiting Professor of the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna and from 2016 he is the Professor of the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po. He is the Senior Adviser in Invesco, London from 2018. From 2016 he is the Member of the Euro50 Group, Paris, and from 2020 the member of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing in Europe in Paris. From 2014 he is also the Member of the Aspen European Strategy Group and from 2016 the founding Board Member of the Aspen Institute U.K. Directly elected member of the National Executive Committee, Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska RP) in Warsaw 2014-2016.
Mr Rostowski was born on 30 April 1951 in London. In the years 1995 – 2000 and 2005 – 2006 he was Dean of the Economics Faculty at Central European University in Budapest. In the years 1992 – 1995 he worked at the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). From 1988 to 1995 Mr Rostowski was lecturer at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.
From 1989 to 1991 Mr Rostowski was Economic Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Finance Leszek Balcerowicz. From 1997 to 2001 he chaired the Macroeconomic Policy Council at the Ministry of Finance and from 2002 to 2004 he was Adviser to the Chairman of the National Bank of Poland. Mr Rostowski was also Adviser to the Government of the Russian Federation for the macroeconomic policy. He is Founder Member of CASE Centre for Social and Economic Research.
Mr Rostowski is author of numerous publications on extending European Union, monetary and exchange rate policies and on transformation of postcommunist economies.
Charles Wyplosz is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva where he was Director of the International Centre for Money and Banking Studies. Previously, he has served as Associate Dean for Research and Development at INSEAD, as Director of the PhD program in Economics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris and as Policy Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). He served as Editor of Covid Economics from its launch to closing over March 2020-June 2021.
His main research areas include financial crises, European monetary integration, fiscal policy and regional monetary integration. He is the co-author of two leading textbooks and has published several books and many professional articles. He has served as consultant to many international organizations and governments and is a frequent contributor to public media.
A French national, Charles Wyplosz holds a degree in Engineering from Ecole Centrale, Paris, and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. He has been awarded the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
