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Economist Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will headline the Susan Bies Lecture on Economics and Public Policy at Northwestern University at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 25.
Gopinath will be joined by Lawrence Christiano, the Alfred W. Chase Professor of Economics, for a conversation on a variety of topics. An audience Q&A and reception will follow their discussion.
The Susan Bies Lecture and reception are hosted by Northwestern’s department of economics at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. The program will take place in the Kellogg Global Hub, White Auditorium (second floor), at 2211 Campus Drive on the Evanston campus. Reservations are required and can be made online.
Gopinath served as the IMF’s chief economist from 2019 to 2022 before being named its first deputy managing director in January of 2022. In her new role, Gopinath represents the Fund at multilateral forums, leads the Fund’s work on research and related policies and oversees flagship publications. She is currently leading the staff’s research on AI and its impact on the labor force and markets.
Recent speeches by Gopinath include the plenary address “Cold War II? Preserving Economic Cooperation Amid Geoeconomic Fragmentation,” at the 20th World Congress of the International Economic Association in Colombia (Dec. 11, 2023); and the speech “The Power and Perils of the ‘Artificial Hand’: Considering AI through the Ideas of Adam Smith,” at University of Glasgow (June 5, 2023).
During her tenure as IMF’s chief economist, Gopinath co-authored the “Pandemic Paper,” which set globally endorsed targets for ending the COVID-19 pandemic and led to the creation of the Multilateral Task Force made up of the leadership of the IMF, World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization. The paper also led to the establishment of a working group with vaccine manufacturers to identify trade barriers, supply bottlenecks and accelerate delivery of vaccines to low- and lower-middle income countries. Gopinath helped set up a Climate Change team inside the IMF to analyze, among other things, optimal climate mitigation policies.
A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society, Gopinath is a member of the Group of Thirty, an independent global body working to deepen understanding of global economic and financial issues.
She is co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics and was previously co-editor of American Economic Review and managing editor of the Review of Economic Studies.
Before joining the IMF, Gopinath taught at Harvard University as the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies, and prior to that she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Her research, which focuses on international finance and macroeconomics, has been published in many top economics journals and is widely cited. She has authored numerous research articles on exchange rates, trade and investments, international financial crises, monetary policy, debt and emerging market crises.
Gopinath is a U.S. national and an overseas citizen of India and is globally recognized for her professional achievements and for breaking barriers in the field. Her citations include being named one of the “25 most influential women of the year” by the Financial Times, a “top Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy and one of the “Women who Broke Major Barriers to Become Firsts” by Time Magazine.
The Susan Bies Lecture on Economics and Public Policy was launched in 2008 in honor of Northwestern alumna Susan Schmidt Bies. Bies, who earned her doctorate in economics from Northwestern in 1972, served in various capacities during a long career, including on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2001 until 2007. The lecture alternates between microeconomic and macroeconomic topics.
