EconPol Europe Annual Conference 2020

Anna began her tenure at the US-China Business Council in January 2016. Since August 2019, she has served as the senior director of government affairs, developing and implementing USCBC’s advocacy on behalf of member companies. She previously served as the director of business advisory services, leading staff across USCBC’s three offices in providing member companies with analysis of China’s commercial policies, business operating environment and best practices. Anna regularly speaks at programs for business and policy audiences. She has appeared in a range of broadcast media such as Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, CGTN, BBC, NPR, CNBC, and Fox Business. She also provides on-the-record and on-background perspectives on US-China issues for publications including Newsweek, the South China Morning Post, Barron’s, Voice of America, and Inside US Trade. Anna served as a China analyst in both public and private sector positions. She began her career as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, where she prepared intelligence briefings for the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and top military officials on strategic China issues. Following her time at the Defense Department, Anna worked for her home state of Arkansas at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, where she helped to develop a strategy for recruiting Chinese investment, organizing and managing visits by Chinese trade delegations and identifying a Chinese consultant to represent Arkansas in Beijing. From 2008 through 2012, she worked in the International Division of the US Chamber of Commerce, primarily focused on China trade and investment issues. She then worked as an economic and trade analyst at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission while pursuing a JD at Georgetown University. Anna began her China studies in 1997. In addition to her JD from Georgetown Law, she holds a BA in Chinese Studies from Wellesley College, and an MA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She and her family live in McLean, Virginia.

26 November, 15:25 - 17:00

Panel Discussion: The US Election: What Impact on EU-US-Asia Trade Relations?  

Alberto Antonioni is an assistant professor at the department of mathematics of Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), Spain. In 2015 he earned a PhD degree in Information Systems from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and another PhD degree in Mathematical Engineering from UC3M. Previously, he worked as postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems, University of Zaragoza, Spain, and at the Department of Economics of University College London, UK. His research interests involve the foundations of complex systems, evolutionary game theory and experimental economics. His research work has been published in journal venues such as Scientific Reports, eLife, Physical Review Letters and Journal of Theoretical Biology, with a citation record of 350+ (h-index=14). He serves as editor for Games, Frontiers (Physics), PLoS ONE and Adaptive Behavior.

d climate change: what can macroprudential regulation do to save the planet

Rüdiger Bachmann is a Stepan Family College Professor of Economics at the department of economics at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a faculty affiliate of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He is a research affiliate with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a CESifo research network fellow and an external research professor at the ifo institute in Munich. Before joining the University of Notre Dame, Bachmann was a full professor (W3) of behavioral economics and finance jointly at Goethe University and the Center of Excellence “Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe” (SAFE) in Frankfurt; the holder of the chair of economics, especially Macroeconomics (W3), at RWTH Aachen University; an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan; and a visiting (assistant) professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Boston University, and Yale University. Bachmann received undergraduate degrees in Economics and Philosophy from Mainz University, and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 2007. Bachmann also serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, as a member of the editorial board of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, and is a member of the macroeconomics committee of
the German Economic Association. Bachmann’s research area is macroeconomics, where he specializes in the macroeconomics of heterogeneous agents. He is interested in the implications of uncertainty and expectation formation on macroeconomic outcomes. For his research he uses the econometric tools of empirical macroeconomics as well as state-of-the-art numerical simulation techniques. He has also branched out into using surveys, in particular firm surveys, to address macroeconomic questions. He has published in the American Economic Review, the Journal
of Monetary Economics, the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the International Economic Review, the Review of Economic Dynamics, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, the European Economic Review, Quantitative Economics, Economics Letters, and Economic Theory.

26 November, 15:25 - 17:00

Panel Discussion: The US Election: What Impact on EU-US-Asia Trade Relations?  

Jennifer has been a journalist in print, radio and television for more than 20 years, the last 10+ specialising in EU policy and legislation in the technology sector — from data protection and privacy to trade agreements; antitrust cases to copyright law; national security to public transparency. Jennifer is originally from Ireland, and after university in Northern Ireland and France, worked in Dublin as a radio journalist. After a few years, she moved to Malta to pursue a career in print media. It was there, editing a national daily paper and covering the Maltese EU accession process, that she became fascinated with EU politics. A move to the UK for family reasons saw her working in the tough, but instructive, British newspaper industry, before moving into trade publications, particularly in the tech sector. She set up her own custom publishing company to capitalise on her experience — Figure8media.After moving to Brussels, Jennifer carved out a niche in freelance reporting and analysis, and is now one of the most respected commentators on everything inside the Brussels Bubble – from Brexit to security, fundamental rights to disinformation. Combining her insider knowledge with a passion for live communication, Jennifer also relishes the opportunity to moderate conferences and events of any size.

Host, 26 November 

Agnès Bénassy-Quéré is Chief Economist at the French Treasury, on leave from University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris School of Economics where she is a Professor of economics. Prior to moving to the Treasury, she was a Member of the French macro-prudential authority, the tax advisory council, the productivity council, the Franco-German council of economic experts, and the Banque of France general board. She was also in charge of the CEPR European Economic Architecture Research and Policy Network. She was a non-resident fellow at Bruegel and a member of the CESIfo network. From 2012 until 2017, she chaired the French Council of Economic Advisors. Prior positions include Director of CEPII, the French research institute in international economics (2006-2012), and academic positions at École Polytechnique, the University of Paris-Ouest and the University of Lille 2. Her research interests focus on the international monetary system and European macroeconomic policy.

25 November, 14:15-15:25 

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

Sebastian Blesse is a researcher at the department of Corporate Taxation and Public Finance at ZEW Mannheim and a PhD candidate at the University of Frankfurt. He studied international economics with a focus on public finance and econometrics at the Universities of Göttingen and Antwerp. His research interests lie in public finance, political economy and applied econometrics. In addition, within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 884 "The Political Economy of Reforms", he studies the decision-making behavior of political decision-makers.

26 November, 13:30 – 15:00         

Panel 3: Productivity of the Public Sector and Public Procurement

Antonio Cabrales is Professor of Economics at Universidad Carlos III. Formerly, he was a professor at University College London, where he was head of department from 2017 to 2019, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He is also the executive vice president of the European Economic Association and former president of the Spanish Economic Association. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. He has worked in a wide range of topics: the economics of networks and mechanism design, learning and evolutionary games, experimental and behavioral economics, and industrial organization. He is associate editor at the Journal of Economic Theory, and formerly an editor of the Berkeley Electronic Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy and Investigaciones Económicas, as well as former associate editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association and SERIEs. He has published at the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Review of Financial Studies. Management Science, Nature Scientific Reports, PLoS One, Physical Review Letters and other scholarly journals. 

Research and publications: www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpcab/

Video: How Intereconnected Should Banks Be?

Presentation: Financial contagion and climate change: what can macroprudential regulation do to save the planet

26 November, 10:50 - 12:30

Panel 2: Novel Regulatory Approaches for Climate Change Mitigation

Topic: Financial contagion and climate change: what can macroprudential regulation do to save the planet”

Mathias Dolls has been Deputy Director of the ifo Centre for Macroeconomics and Surveys since 2017. Prior to that he was deputy head of the research group "International Distribution and Redistribution" at the ZEW in Mannheim. He received his doctorate at the University of Cologne in 2012 and in 2017 he was awarded the Schmölders Prize, which is awarded annually for behavioural research in economic life by the Financial Studies Committee of the Verein für Socialpolitik. Mathias Dolls is scientific coordinator of the EconPol Europe network.

26 November 09:05 - 10:35

Panel 1: EU Integration and Solidarity

Natalia Fabra is Professor of Economics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. She is Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Associate Member of the Toulouse School of Economics and Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge Energy Policy Research Group. She belongs to the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy (EAGCP) of the European Commission. She obtained her PhD in 2001 at the European University Institute (Florence), under the supervision of Prof. Massimo Motta. Natalia works in the field of Industrial Organization, with emphasis in Energy and Environmental Economics and Regulation and Competition Policy. Her research papers are published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, the Rand Journal of Economics, The Economic Journal, Energy Economics, The Journal of Industrial Economics, and the International Journal of Industrial Organization, among others. Natalia is Associate Editor at the Economic Journal and the Journal of Industrial Economics. Natalia has received two distinguished awards as Spanish Best Young Economist, one awarded by the Banco Sabadell Foundation, and the other by the Madrid regional government. In 2017, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant “Current Tools and Policy Challenges in Electricity Markets” for the period 2018-2023. Natalia has been Research Visiting Fellow at several institutions, including the University of California Energy Institute (Berkeley), Nuffield College (Oxford), the Toulouse School of Economics, Northwestern University (Chicago), and the Energy Policy Research Group (Cambridge), among others.

Article: Auctioning Renewable Energy: How to Put a Price On It?

Presentation: Technology neutral versus technology specific procurement

26 November, 10:50 - 12:30

Panel 2: Novel Regulatory Approaches for Climate Change Mitigation

Topic: Technology neutral versus technology specific procurement (with Juan Pablo Montero)

Ivan Faiella is Senior Economist at the Bank of Italy. He is member of the Italian Observatory on Energy Poverty, of the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group, of the Network for Greening the Financial System and of the Committee for the Estimation of Natural Capital. 

Publications: www.researchgate.net/profile/Ivan_Faiella

25 November, 14:15-15:25 

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

Mihály Fazekas is an assistant professor at the Central European University, School of Public Policy, with a focus on using Big Data methods to understand the quality of government globally. He is also the scientific director of an innovative think-tank, the Government Transparency Institute, while serving as a non-resident research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he pioneered Big Data methods to measure and understand high-level corruption in Central and Eastern Europe.

His research and policy interests revolve around corruption, favouritism, private sector collusion, and government spending efficiency. Methodologically, he has experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods in diverse fields such as public policy, economics, and political science. He worked at the University of Cambridge as the scientific coordinator of the Horizon 2020 funded project DIGIWHIST which used a Big Data approach to measuring corruption risks, administrative capacity, and transparency in public procurement in 33 European countries. He also serves as a co-Principal Investigator on the DFID funded research project looking at anti-corruption in development aid funded procurement.

He regularly consults the European Commission, Council of Europe, EBRD, OECD, World Bank, and range of national governments and NGOs across the globe. Together with Bence Tóth and István János Tóth, he was awarded on two occasions the first prize in the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre competition for the best new proxy measure of corruption.

26 November, 13:30 - 15:10

Panel 3: Productivity of the Public Sector and Public Procurement

Lisandra Flach has been director of the Center for International Economics at the ifo Institute, Munich, since July 2020. She is also Professor of Economics at the LMU Munich. After her undergraduate studies in Brazil, she received her PhD from the University of Mannheim in 2012 and was an assistant professor at LMU Munich from 2012 to 2020. She has been a research visitor at Harvard University, Columbia University, University of California San Diego and at the Brazilian Statistical Office. Her main area of research is international economics, with a focus on empirical analysis of international trade flows and the international activity of firms. She is a member in internationally-renowned networks such as CEPR and CESifo and associate editor of International Economics (Elsevier Journal). She has published in high impact journals such as the Journal of International Economics and contributes to policy consultancy projects, for instance as a Lead of projects for the German Ministry of Economics and Energy and the Chamber of Commerce.

26 November, 15:25 - 17:00

Panel 4: The US Election: What Impact on EU-US-Asia Trade Relations?  

Clemens Fuest has been President of the ifo Institute since April 2016. He is also Managing Director of CESifo GmbH, Professor of Economics at LMU Munich and Director of the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at LMU Munich. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Finance (Chairman from 2007 to 2010), Programme Director of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, member of the European Academy of Sciences and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Ernst & Young GmbH. He was also a member of the EU High Level Group on Own Resources and of the Minimum Wage Commission of the German Government. His research areas are public finances, public debt and taxes. Before his appointment to Munich, he was a professor at the Universities of Cologne (2001-2008), Oxford (2008-2013) and Mannheim (2013-2016).

13 October

Panel Discussion: Fiscal Policy for the Post-Covid Era: US versus Europe

Johannes Hahn has been the Commissioner for Budget and Administration in the European Commission since 2019. He has been with the Commission since 2010, where he previously served as the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, and the European Commissioner for Regional Policy. From 2007 to 2010, he was the Austrian Minister for Science and Research. He was previously a member of the Vienna regional government (2003-2007) and the Vienna regional parliament (1996-2003). He has been a board member and CEO of Novomatic AG, Executive Director of the Austrian People's Party, Secretary General of the Austrian Managers Association, and held many managerial functions in Austrian industry. Commissioner Hahn holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna.

25 November, 13:00-14:00

Keynote speech

Monika Jones is one of Germany's leading bilingual journalists and presenters. As an English speaking news anchor at Germany's global TV broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, she is familiar to a wide international audience, especially in North America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Monika is also one of Germany's leading bilingual presenters of international conferences and business events. Her regular clients include top multinational companies, government ministries, European institutions and NGOs. Her specialist areas are economics, corporate relations, human resources, and transport & logistics. For Deutsche Welle, Monika presents the flagship news show DW World News. She also anchors Made in Germany - a globally transmitted, weekly magazine focusing upon the latest developments in the German business world. Monika presented one of the largest Livestream events ever as the official presenter of the European Space Agency's historic Rosetta mission, which successfully landed the Philae space probe on a comet. Equally at home in both the English and German languages, Monika has used her bilingual skill extensively as a translator. She is also one of Germany’s top audio-guide speakers, providing the English narrations for such major exhibitions as Salzburg Castle, The Berlin Natural History Museum, The Bach Archive, Sanssoucis Palace, and Dachau Concentration Camp.

Host, 25 November

Ms. Kasperek is the director of the Institute of International Economic Law where she executes the Institute’s national and international programming in international trade, international tax, fintech and monetary affairs by effectuating conferences, colloquia, and special events. She further spearheads external relations, while assisting in advancement efforts and student-centered fellowship certificate programs, and the execution of IIEL’s colloquium. She is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Global Business & Economics Program at the Atlantic Council, where she covers a range of topics including international trade, trade policy, transatlantic relations, and US-China relations. Ms. Kasperek previously served as the deputy director of the Global Business and Economics Program at the Atlantic Council. In this capacity, she oversaw development and execution of new programming, and managed portfolios on European growth, trade, and the transatlantic relationship. Ms. Kasperek was the managing editor of the Atlantic Council’s weekly newsletter “The Trade Shop,” which reached more than ten thousand people on a weekly basis. She has co-authored a report on the future of trade, published op-eds, and has led public discussions as well as live interviews with prominent transatlantic leaders on foreign policy, the transatlantic economy, and trade. A native of Germany, Ms. Kasperek received her bachelor’s degree in European studies and master’s degree in international relations from Maastricht University. As part of her undergraduate study, she took courses and conducted research at Sciences Po, Aix en Provence in France.

Podcast: Does the pandemic make an EU-US trade collision less or more likely?

26 November, 15:25 - 17:00

Panel Discussion: The US Election: What Impact on EU-US-Asia Trade Relations?  

Dr Jörg Kukies has been State Secretary for financial market policy and European policy at the Federal Ministry of Finance since April 2018. He previously spent 14 years with Goldman Sachs International, beginning as an associate in the product development team in London, before becoming Head of Equities Division for Germany and Austria. In 2011, he became Head of Equity Derivatives for Europe, Middle East and Africa, before becoming Co-Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs AG and Managing Director of the Frankfurt branch of Goldman Sachs International. Dr Kukies studied Sciences Economiques at the PantheonSorbonne University, Paris, gained a Master in Public Administration at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

 

25 November, 14:15 - 15:25

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

Emmanuel Moulin joined the French Treasury as deputy head of the transport office from 1996 to 1998. He was in charge of cash management in the Debt Management Office from 1998 to 2000. He was appointed Alternate Director of the World Bank in Washington in 2000 before becoming Secretary General of the Paris Club from 2003 to 2005. In 2006, he became senior banker at Citigroup, in charge of the public sector for France and Belgium. In 2007, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to Christine Lagarde, Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, where he was in charge of macro-economic policy, financial and European and international affairs. He joined the Presidency of the Republic in June 2009 as economic advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy. After leaving the Elysée Palace in May 2012, he joined the Eurotunnel group as Deputy CEO. In February 2015, he became Managing Director of the investment bank Mediobanca. He has been Chief of Staff to the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Economic Recovery since May 2017. Emmanuel Moulin graduated from ENA in 1996. He also holds a degree from Sciences-Po, Essec and University of Paris II.

25 November, 14:15-15:25 

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

In her current position, Piroska Nagy-Mohácsi is responsible for various global policy initiatives on financial resilience and innovation, digital currencies, and growth and innovation. She was previously Policy Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), overseeing strategic directions and policy initiatives in Emerging Europe, Central Asia and North Africa. She was also responsible for the EBRD’s economic forecast and co-created and co-led the Vienna Initiative in 2008-15, a public-private crisis management and coordination platform in emerging Europe, and headed its Secretariat. Piroska worked in senior positions as economist in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 1986 and 2008 with surveillance, policy advice and program responsibilities in Europe, Africa and Asia. While on leave from the IMF, she was guest lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1996/97 and Senior Adviser at Fitch Ratings in 2003/4. She has published in the areas financial stability, fiscal policy reform and structural transformation. She is the author of the book The Meltdown of the Russian State (Edgar Elgar, 2000).

25 November, 14:15-15:25 

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

Panu Poutvaara’s main research interests are migration, public economics, and political economics. His work has been covered in titles including the Economist, New York Times, Newsweek, the Atlantic, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NPR, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the Sun, the Daily Mail, Wall Street Journal, der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and El Español. He has  been published in the Journal of the European Economic Association, Economic Journal, European Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, amongst others. He is also member of The Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration.

26 November, 09:05 – 10:35               

Panel 1 – EU Integration and Solidarity

Odile Renaud-Basso has been General Director of the French Treasury since June 2016. An Auditor at the National Court of Accounts from 1990 to 1994, she joined the Treasury Department before being appointed in 2005 as Director of the European Commission’s DG ECFIN. She became Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the European Council in 2010 then served as Deputy Chief of Staff to France’s Prime Minister in 2012, before becoming the Deputy Director General of the Caisse des Dépôts, Special Director for Savings Funds, in 2013. She is a Sciences-Po Paris and ENA graduate.

25 November, 14:15-15:25 

Panel Discussion: Balancing New Challenges and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth for Europe

Hernán D. Seoane has been Associate Professor at the Economics Department of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid since June 2017. Before that, he was Assistant Professor at the same University from 2011. He received his PhD from Duke University in 2011 under the supervision of Professor Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez. His main research focuses on International Macroeconomics and Finance, Bayesian Econometrics and Numerical Methods and his research interest are related to macroeconomic instability episodes in open and emerging economies, sovereign debt crisis and financial fragility. He has published his research in the Journal of International Economics, the International Economic Review and the Journal of Economics, dynamics and control, among other journals.

Hernán holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Duke University (NC, USA), MA in Economics from Universidad de San Andrés (Argentina), and is Licentiate in Economics from Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).

26 November, 9:05 - 10:35

Panel 1 – EU Integration and Solidarity

Vitezslav Titl is an Assistant Professor of Law & Economics at Utrecht University and an affiliated researcher at KU Leuven. He has received his PhD from KU Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Vitezslav’s research is focused on legal and political aspects of public procurement markets. His work was published in leading academic journals, such as European Economic Review. He also publishes policy-oriented articles in IDEA CERGE-EI studies and VoxEU columns.

Online Public Procurement System Reduces Collusion in Ukraine

26 November, 13:30 - 15:10

Panel 3: Productivity of the Public Sector and Public Procurement