Recent political developments have tested the stability of the world trading system. Many commentators have suggested that the current political upsets are a populist backlash against the status quo of the international economic system by those who feel left behind by the recent wave of globalisation. Economists have documented the extent to which globalization and technological changes contributed to the decline of left behind regions, like manufacturing cities and sea-side towns. Empirical research in the last couple of decades has made much progress in understanding the processes of displacement and the challenges to re-employment.
Looking forward from what we have learned, this panel will address the following questions:
1. How can we ensure the gains from economic changes are shared more equitably?
2. What can stakeholders do to overcome the economic and political polarization that we see today?
The purpose of the policy panel is to provide an evidence-based discussion, with the aim of giving concrete answers and recommendations to these two questions.
The Chair and Panel
Dame Minouche Shafik is an economist by training, Minouche has spent most of her career straddling the worlds of public policy and academia. After completing her BSc in economics and politics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, she took an MSc in economics at LSE before completing a DPhil in economics at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. She was appointed Director of LSE in September 2017.
During her extensive career, Minouche has worked in senior positions at the World Bank, the Department for International Development and the IMF before becoming Deputy Governor of the Bank of England in 2014. In this role, she sat on all of the Bank's major policy committees and led the Fair and Effective Markets Review.
Minouche currently serves as a Trustee of the British Museum, the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, and is Honorary Fellow of St. Antony's College Oxford. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year's Honours list in 2015.
Professor Elhanan Helpman is the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Statistics form Tel Aviv University, an M.A. degree in Economics from the same institution, and a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Harvard University.
Helpman is a cofounder of the "new trade theory" and the "new growth theory," which emphasize the roles of economies of scale and imperfect competition. Much of his work in trade, growth, and political economy is summarised in eight books: Market Structure and Foreign Trade (with Paul Krugman), Trade Policy and Market Structure (with Paul Krugman), Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy (with Gene Grossman), Special Interest Politics (with Gene Grossman), Interest Groups and Trade Policy (with Gene Grossman), The Mystery of Economic Growth, Understanding Global Trade, and Globalisation and Inequality.
Professor Stephen Machin is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Previously he was Professor of Economics at University College London and has been visiting Professor at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, has been President of the European Association of Labour Economists, is a Fellow of the Society of Labour Economists and was a member of the UK Low Pay Commission from 2007-13. His current research interests include labour market inequality, education and crime, and the interactions between them.
Marion Jansen is the Chief Economist and Director of the Division of Market Development at the International Trade Centre (ITC), where she is responsible for the annual SME Competitiveness Outlook and has the lead on ITC’s contributions to G20 processes. She previously held appointments as counsellor in the World Trade Organization (2012-2014; 1999-2009) and as Head of the Trade and Employment Programme in the International Labour Organization (ILO; 2009-2012). She worked in the private sector (economics consulting) before joining the WTO.
Marion holds a PhD in economics from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and undergraduate degrees from the Universities of Toulouse (France), Konstanz (Germany) and Passau (Germany). She has lectured at the University of Geneva, the World Trade Institute, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the European University on international trade, socioeconomic effects of globalization and managerial economics.
Her research interests cover the fields of standards and regulations in international trade, services trade, migration and the use of economics in international economic law. Her work has been published in refereed journals like the Review of International Economics, World Economy and Food Policy. She has edited and authored a number of influential publications on trade and labour, including the ILO-WTO volume "Making Globalization Socially Sustainable".
Beata Javorcik is Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College. She is also Programme Director of International Trade and Regional Economics at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. Prior to coming to Oxford, she worked at the World Bank in Washington DC where she was involved in research activities, lending operations and provision of policy advice to developing countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. As of September 2019, she will become Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Beata’s current research interests focus on the impact of foreign direct investment on host countries, trade finance, tariff evasion and shock propagation through production networks. She holds a PhD in Economics from Yale University and a BA from the University of Rochester.
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