Managing Capital Flows and Growth Amid the Sovereign Debt Crises

From the World Bank:

“The World Bank Institute, in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Bank of England, the Bank for International Settlements, and the Koerea Development Institute (KDI) School, is organizing its annual flagship seminar on Managing Capital Flows and Growth in Seoul, South Korea. This event has been offered since 1998 because of popular demand from developing countries.

This event is organized at a critical moment of rising fiscal deficits and sovereign debt crises in Europe, a possible slowdown in trade and financial globalization, and more stringent regulations at micro and macro levels. Debt overhang could have severe implications for the global recovery in growth and job creation. The focus will be on the sovereign debt crisis and its resolution, implications for fiscal policies in developed and developing economies, appropriate fiscal-monetary, exchange rate and regulatory policies that are needed, and the global outlook for policy reform and growth in the short to medium term.”

Jacob Kirkegaard will speak at the second module, Crisis Resolutions and Lessons from the Past. His topic is “Sovereign Debt Crisis Resolution in the context of developed countries: what is new and different this time?”

From the World Bank:

“This session will discuss the direction of debt resolution in the current euro zone crisis and compare with those of the past. The euro zone crisis has revealed important new risks of “market contagion” and revealed the traditional “sovereign guardians of global financial stability” in the G-7 as remarkably impotent in the face of their own sovereign debt crises. A prolonged and volatile interaction between financial markets and domestic and global political leaders seems a prerequisite to foster the necessary political will to move towards a resolution. This has important implications from a “crisis resolution perspective” and marks a decisive break from past debt and financial crises in Asia, Russia, and Latin America. The fact that seemingly at least parts of the “bailout funds” for the euro area has been and will likely continue to come from G-20 countries with considerably lower GDP/capita than the recipient countries raises another host of legitimacy and global governance questions.”

Jacob’s session will be moderated by Jinsoo Lee of KDI School.