The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted the Flagship Seminar on the current edition of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Asian Regional Economic Outlook, “Navigating Policy Trade-Offs and Mitigating Output Losses in Asia”, on May 4^th at 3:00 PM (IST).

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4716510478143/WN_cHf_Bwt4Q8an3Vludle61g

About the event:

While the growth outlook for Asia and the Pacific has been downgraded for 2022, the region remains the world’s most dynamic. Headwinds to the region’s recovery include trade and commodity price spillovers from the Ukraine war, the tightening of financial conditions amid US monetary policy normalization, and COVID-19 developments in some countries. High global food and fuel prices have added inflationary pressure in much of Asia, hurting the poor the most. Rising inflation and slowing growth are worsening an already-difficult tradeoff facing policymakers. Fiscal policy should aim to protect the vulnerable from rising food and fuel prices, preferably through targeted assistance, and within a framework for medium-term consolidation. Monetary tightening will be needed in most countries, with the speed of tightening depending on domestic inflation developments and external pressures.

While responding to difficult short-term policy trade-offs, it is also essential to focus on policies to address long-term challenges, especially in many countries where the pandemic is expected to leave deep economic scars. In this context, two areas of particular interest include:

• Tackling the increase in private debt: Exceptional measures deployed during the pandemic helped maintain private access to credit, staving off a deeper recession, but led to a surge in consumer and business indebtedness. The increase in leverage may impact the recovery, especially in countries where debt is concentrated among vulnerable firms and households, insolvency procedures are inefficient, public and private deleveraging coincide, and monetary policy must be tightened rapidly. Assessing how leverage is distributed is key to forecasting the pace of the recovery and calibrating the unwinding of pandemic-time support so as to mitigate scarring.
• Strengthening international trade and building supply-chain resilience: COVID-19 was expected to lead to a dramatic collapse in trade, and initial disruptions in some trade networks prompted calls to reshore production. However, trade in goods bounced back quite rapidly, negative spillover effects of pandemic containment policies on trading partners were short-lived, and value chains proved resilient overall. However, to guard against future shocks, international production and trade networks can be strengthened by increasing diversification, and enhancing substitutability, in input sourcing.”

Presenters:

• Shanaka (Jay) Peiris: Shanaka (Jay) Peiris is currently the Division Chief, Regional Studies, Asia Pacific Department (APD) at the IMF. Previously, he was the Mission Chief for Myanmar and Deputy Division covering ASEAN macro financial Surveillance and subregional issues for APD. Before joining the IMF, he taught Mathematical Economics and Econometrics at Sommerville College and Jesus College, Oxford. He has published research papers on a wide range of topics including inclusive growth, monetary policy and inflation, bond markets, banking and finance, and macroeconomic models for emerging markets. He completed his PhD in Economics at Oxford University.
• Jean-Marc Natal: Jean-Marc Natal is Deputy Division Chief of the World Economic Studies Division in the IMF’s Research Department. Prior to joining the IMF, he was Deputy Director of Research at the Swiss National Bank and taught Monetary Theory and Policy at the University of Geneva. His research is published in various economics journals, including the Economic Journal, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking and International Finance and covers the study of monetary and exchange rate regimes, policy transmission, inflation dynamics and macroeconomic modeling. He holds a PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

Discussants:

• V Anantha Nageswaran: V Anantha Nageswaran is the Chief Economic Advis0r to Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Prior to his appointment as the CEA, Dr Nageswaran was a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India from 2019-2021. He was dean of the IFMR Graduate School of Business and a distinguished visiting professor of Economics at Krea University. Anantha is a man of many facets. He is a writer, author, professor, macroeconomist and a consultant. He earned a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad in 1985 and a PhD in Finance in 1995 from the University of Massachusetts. His post-doctoral corporate career spanned seventeen years from 1994 to 2011 across Switzerland and Singapore. During this period, he has been a currency economist at UBS and head of research and investment consulting in Credit Suisse Private Banking in Asia, and head of Asia research and global chief investment officer at Julius Baer. Nageswaran took to consulting, writing and teaching from July 2011. He has co-authored four books.

• Amita Batra: Amita Batra is Professor of Economics and currently the Chairperson of the Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, JNU. Prof. Batra was Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney in October 2018 and the first holder, of the ICCR Professorial Chair in Contemporary Indian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, 2013. She has been visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. Prof. Batra is member, Economic Affairs Council (since 2020) of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). She is a member of the Advisory Group for G20 (Finance track), 2022-2023, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India. She is an honorary member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Advanced Trade Research of the Trade Promotion Council of India. She is member, editorial committee/ boards of national and international journals. Prof. Batra is also an occasional columnist for Business Standard, a leading financial daily in India. Prof. Batra has written and published extensively on Trade Policy issues. Her latest book titled India’s Trade Policy in the 21st Century (Routledge: London) is forthcoming.

Moderator:

• Rakesh Mohan: Rakesh Mohan is President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, Professor at Yale’s School of Management, and Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process since the late 1980s, he has served in senior roles including as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary, Economic Affairs and Chief Economic Adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance, and Economic Adviser in the Indian Ministry of Industry. He has authored books on urban economics, urban development, monetary policy, and economic reform. He is also member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM).

For event-related queries, please contact Vrinda Gupta at VGupta@csep.org. For media inquiries, please contact Trishna Wahengbam at TWahengbam@csep.org.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.