11th ASIAN MONETARY POLICY FORUM
Agenda
2024
Venue: Pacific Ballroom, Level 1
Pan Pacific Singapore, 7 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square, Singapore 039595
Special Guest: Mr Alvin TAN
Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore and Board Member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
“Expertise, Artificial Intelligence, and the Work of the Future”
Q&A Session
Chair:
Professor Steven J. DAVIS
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, William H. Abbott Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Senior Fellow and Exco Member, ABFER
2024
Venue: North South Room, Level 2
Conrad Centennial Singapore, 2 Temasek Boulevard, Singapore 038982
"Monetary Policy, Banking and Capital Markets: Global Outlook"
“Debt Supercycle versus Secular Stagnation”
Discussants:
Professor Laura ALFARO
Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Professor Andrew K. ROSE
Dean and Distinguished Professor in Finance, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow and Exco Member, ABFER
Chair:
Professor Sumit AGARWAL
Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor, HOD Real Estate, Managing Director of Sustainable and Green Finance Institute, National University of Singapore and President of ABFER
Special Guest: Mr Swee Keat HENG
Deputy Prime Minister, Singapore and Board Member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
Introductory Remarks by Mr Edward S. ROBINSON
Deputy Managing Director (Economic Policy) and Chief Economist, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Member of the ABFER Council
Opening Address by Professor Gungwu WANG
University Professor, National University of Singapore
Policy Panel
Professor Loren BRANDT
Noranda Chair Professor of Economics, University of Toronto
Professor Yongding YU
Academician, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chair:
Professor Bert HOFMAN
Professor, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute
Professor Beatrice WEDER DI MAURO
President at Centre for Economic Policy Research, Professor of International Economics at Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), Visiting Professor at Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society INSEAD and Senior Fellow of ABFER
Chair:
Professor Steven J. DAVIS
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, William H. Abbott Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Senior Fellow and Exco Member, ABFER
Chronological Order of Speakers
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Mr Edward ROBINSON
Deputy Managing Director (Economic Policy) and Chief Economist, Monetary Authority of Singapore and Member of ABFER Council
Edward Robinson has been with the MAS since 1992 and has been involved in macroeconometric modeling and is responsible for heading a team engaged in the continuing developmental work for the suite of MAS models, which are used for policy analysis. He has also been involved in other areas of economic policy work including in various inter-agency work groups which looked at the structural challenges facing the Singapore economy. He served on the Board of the Singapore Competition Commission between 2005 and 2007. He studied economics and applied econometrics at Monash University and the University of Melbourne.
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Professor David AUTOR
Ford Professor of Economics and Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.
Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. In 2020, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was selected as one of two researchers across all scientific fields a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist.
The Economist magazine labeled Autor in 2019 as “The academic voice of the American worker.” Later that same year, and with equal justification, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist” by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight in a segment on automation and employment. -
Professor Steven J. DAVIS
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, William H. Abbott Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Senior Fellow and Exco Member, ABFER
Steven Davis studies working arrangements, business dynamics, economic fluctuations, policy uncertainty and other topics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and other leading scholarly journals. He hosts Economics, Applied – a video podcast series sponsored by the Hoover Institution.
Davis is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, IZA research fellow, senior academic fellow with the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research, adviser to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, senior adviser to the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, and an elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. He was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for more than 35 years, including service as a chaired professor and as deputy dean of the faculty.
Davis is a co-creator of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Indices, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, the Work-from-Home Map project, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He cofounded and co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. He has received research grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffmann Foundation, Templeton Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, and other organizations. In 2012, he was awarded the Addington Prize in Measurement for “Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty.”
His teaching experience includes Ph.D. courses in macroeconomics and labor economics at the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Maryland; MBA courses in macroeconomics, money and banking, business strategy, and financial institutions for Chicago Booth; and executive MBA courses in macroeconomics for Chicago Booth in Barcelona, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore. Davis has also taught undergraduate courses in microeconomics, econometrics, and money and banking at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Davis has served as an expert in many litigation matters. In the antitrust area, he has testified and consulted on market definition, dominance, competitive relationships, exclusionary practices, price discrimination, and collusive conduct. In mortgage lending and consumer finance, he has testified and consulted on class certification, liability, and damages. He has also offered testimony and analysis of damages in breach of contract and credit market discrimination. Past engagements include matters pertaining to auto loans and leases, containerboard and corrugated products, microprocessors, mortgage loans, pharmaceuticals, software products and markets, specialty grocery products, trade shows, viatical and life settlements, and workers’ compensation insurance. Outside of litigation matters, he has consulted on labor market developments, the macroeconomic outlook, capital planning in a large financial institution, and the use of text-based methods to quantify tax reform likelihoods.
Davis has written for the Atlantic, Financial Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Los Angeles Times, Time, Wall Street Journal and other media. He has appeared on BBC, Bloomberg TV, CBS, CGTN, Channel News Asia, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, NBC Network News, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and the U.S. Public Broadcasting System, among others. -
Professor Axel A. WEBER
President, Center for Financial Studies, House of Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt
Axel A. Weber is President of the Center for Financial Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is the Chairman of the VISA Economic Empowerment Institute, Chairman of the Advisory Board of RAISIN GmbH, Chairman of the Trilateral Commission Europe and a Member of the Group of Thirty. He also is a Member of the TEMASEK International Advisory Council and an Senior Advisor to both CVC Advisors Limited and Boston Consulting Group.
From 2012 to 2022, Axel Weber served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of UBS Group AG. He was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute of International Finance.
Prof. Weber was the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank (2004-2011) and served as a Member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, Member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, German Governor of the International Monetary Fund and was a member of the G7 and G20 Ministers and Governors. He was a member of the steering committees of the European Systemic Risk Board (2011) and the Financial Stability Board (2010-2011).
He was Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2011-2012) and Professor of International Economics at the University of Cologne (2001-2004). He also served as a Member of the German Council of Economic Experts (2002-2004). Before that, he was Professor of Monetary Economics and Director of the Center for Financial Studies at Goethe University in Frankfurt (1998-2001). He was also Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Bonn (1994-1998).
Axel Weber holds a PhD in economics from the University of Siegen. He graduated with a master’s degree in economics at the University of Constance and holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Duisburg-Essen and Constance. -
Professor Kenneth ROGOFF
Professor of Economics and Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics, Harvard University
Kenneth Rogoff is Maurits C. Boas Professor at Harvard University, and former chief economist at the IMF. His influential 2009 book with Carmen Reinhart, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, shows the remarkable quantitative similarities across time and countries in the roots and aftermath of debt and financial crises. Rogoff is also known for his pioneering work on central bank independence, and on exchange rates. He is co-author of the widely-used graduate text, Foundations of International Macroeconomics. His 2016 book The Curse of Cash looks at the past, present and future of currency from standardized coinage to crypto-currencies. His monthly syndicated column on global economic issues is published in over 50 countries.
Rogoff is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has long ranked among the top dozen most cited economists, and is an international grandmaster of chess. -
Professor Laura ALFARO
Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Laura Alfaro is the Warren Albert Professor at Harvard Business School. She was Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012, when she took a leave from Harvard. She is a Research Associate in the CEPR and NBER IFM Program and ITI. Professor Alfaro is the author of multiple articles published in leading academic journals and of Harvard Business School cases related to the field of international economics, such as capital flows, foreign direct investment, trade, and sovereign debt. Laura Alfaro earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
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Professor Andrew K. ROSE
Dean and Distinguished Professor in Finance, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow and Exco Member, ABFER
Andrew K. Rose is Dean of NUS Business School. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (based in Cambridge, MA), a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (based in London, England), and a Senior Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (based in Singapore). He received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his MPhil from Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and his BA from Trinity College, University of Toronto.
Prof Rose has published over 150 papers and over 90 articles in refereed economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Journal of Finance. His research addresses issues in international trade, finance, and macroeconomics, and has received more than 40,000 citations. His teaching is in the areas of international macroeconomics; he has won two teaching awards.
Prior to joining NUS, Prof Rose served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Chair of the Faculty 2010-2016 at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and was the managing editor of the Journal of International Economics 1995-2001. He was the founding director of the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy at Haas and the Risk Management Institute at the National University of Singapore. He has organised over 50 academic conferences.
Prof Rose is interested in the theory and practice of economic policy, and most of his work is applied and driven by “real world” international phenomena. He has worked on six continents and at a number of international economic agencies, including: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. He has also worked at a number of national agencies, central banks and universities, including Australia, Canada, England, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. -
Professor Sumit AGARWAL
Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor, HOD Real Estate, Managing Director of Sustainable and Green Finance Institute, National University of Singapore and President of ABFER
Sumit Agarwal is the Low Tuck Kwong Professor at the School of Business and Professor in the departments of Economics, Finance and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he held positions as a Professor of Finance at Georgetown University, senior financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a senior vice president and credit risk management executive in the Small Business Risk Solutions Group of Bank of America.
Dr. Agarwal's research interests include issues relating to financial institutions, household finance, behavioral finance, international finance, real estate markets, urban economics and capital markets. He has published over eighty research articles in journals like the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking among others. Additionally, he has co-written a book titled Kiasunomics and co-edited a collected volume on Household Credit Usage: Personal Debt and Mortgages.
He is the co-editor of Real Estate Economics and an association editor at Management Science and Journal of Financial Services Research. He writes regular op-ed’s in the Straits Times and Forbes and is featured on various media outlets like the BBC, CNBC, and Fox on issues relating to finance, banking, and real estate markets. Sumit’s research is widely cited in leading newspapers and magazines like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, and the U.S Presidents Report to Congress. He also runs a blog on household financial decision making called Smart Finance.
Dr. Agarwal has won various prestigious awards like the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Outstanding Researcher Award at the National University of Singapore, the Paul Samuelson TIAA-CREF certificate of excellence, the Terker Family Prizes in Investment Research Award from the Wharton School of Business, the Glucksman Institute Research Award from New York University and grants from the Russell Sage Foundation and the NBER/Sloan Foundation.
Dr. Agarwal has been invited to present his research at many renowned universities such Columbia University, Northwestern University, University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, as well as institutions and central banks namely the IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank, European Union, Dutch Central Bank, Riksbank, OCC, and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He has consulted with the World Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, OCC, the Reserve Bank of India and Bank of America.
He has also served as an adjunct professor and a scholar at the finance department at George Washington University, DePaul University, the Indian School of Business, HKUST, BIS and the World Bank. Agarwal received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. -
Professor Gungwu WANG
University Professor, National University of Singapore
Wang Gungwu is National University of Singapore University Professor. He received his BA Hons. and MA from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1957). He is a Fellow and former President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science; Member, Academia Sinica; and Honorary Member, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is also Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE); Officer of the Order of Australia (AO); and, received the Distinguished Service Order of Singapore. He was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize; the Nara Economic and Social Science Prize; and the Tang Prize in Sinology
Professor Wang received his B.A. Hons (1953) and M.A. (1955) from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his Ph.D. at the University of London (1957). He was Professor of History at the University of Malaya, 1963-1968; Professor of Far Eastern History at the Australian National University, 1968-1986 and Director of Research School of Pacific Studies, 1975-1980. From 1986 to 1995, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong. His most recent publications are, Renewal: the Chinese State and New Global History (2013); The Eurasian Core and its Edges (Dialogue with Ooi Kee Beng) (2015); Home is not here (2018); China Reconnects: Joining a Deep-rooted Past to a New World Order (2019); Home is where we are (with Margaret Wang) (2020); Living with Civilisations: Reflections on Southeast Asia’s Local and National Cultures (2023). -
Professor Loren BRANDT
Noranda Chair Professor of Economics, University of Toronto
Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and has been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he recently completed an interdisciplinary effort analyzing policy, regulation and innovation in China’s power and telecom sectors, which was published by Cambridge University Press. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom through the first three decades of reform. His current research focuses on issues relating to industrial policy and innovation in China, property rights and agriculture, and economic growth and structural change.
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Professor Yongding YU
Academician of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Yongding Yu is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a Member of Advisory Committee of National Planning of the National Development and Reform Committee of the People's Republic of China. He was Director-General of the Institute of World Economics and Politics from 1998 to 2009, and President of the China Society of World Economics from 2003 to 2011. He served on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People's Bank of China from 2004 to 2006.
Yu Yongding was born in 1948. He graduated from Beijing School of Science and Technology in 1969, received his MA degree in economics from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1983, and his PhD degree in economics from the University of Oxford in 1994 -
Professor Bert HOFMAN
Professor, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute
Bert Hofman is Adjunct Professor at the East Asian Institute of the National University Singapore. He was director of EAI 2019-2023 and was a Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of the National University Singapore 2019-2023. He is also a Senior Fellow at MERICS in Germany, Honorary Senior Fellow at the Asia Society, and Member of the World Association for China Studies at the China Academy of Social Sciences.
Before joining NUS in 2019, he worked with the World Bank for 27 years, 22 of which in Asia, and 12 of which on China. Mr. Hofman was the World Bank Country Director for China 2014-2019, the country economist 2004-2008, and the Chief Economist for the World Bank in the East Asia and Pacific region 2011-2014. He also worked on Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and Mongolia, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Brazil, Russia, and others.
Mr. Hofman also worked at the Kiel Institute of World Economics, the OECD and NMB Bank (Now ING). He studied economics in Rotterdam and Kiel. Mr. Hofman has extensive experience in advising governments around the region on a wide range of development issues, and he has published on fiscal policy, decentralization and debt issues, and China’s and Indonesia’s recent economic history. His current interests include China’s future growth trajectory, technology, aging, and geopolitics and China-US relations. -
Professor Beatrice WEDER DI MAURO
President at Centre for Economic Policy Research, Professor of International Economics at Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), Visiting Professor at Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society INSEAD and Senior Fellow, ABFER
Beatrice Weder di Mauro was appointed as the President of CEPR in July 2018. The Centre's President has overall responsibility for CEPR's research programmes, policy outreach, funding and all researcher appointments. She works closely with the Centre's Vice Presidents, Chief Executive Officer, Programme Directors, and CEPR staff to develop new initiatives and sustain existing activities. Beatrice Weder di Mauro is a Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, Visiting Professor at INSEAD and Distinguished Fellow at the INSEAD Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society.
From 2001 to 2018, she held the Chair of International Macroeconomics at the University of Mainz, Germany, and from 2004 to 2012 she served on the German Council of Economic Experts. Previously was Assistant Professor at the University of Basel and Economist at the International Monetary Fund. She held visiting positions at Harvard University, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the United Nations University in Tokyo. She has served as consultant to governments, international organizations and central banks (European Commission, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, OECD, among others). She has board level experience in leading global firms in finance, technology and Pharma. Currently, is an independent director on the board Bosch and of Unigestion. She is a senior fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research (ABFER), a member the International Advisory Board of Bocconi and a member of the Bellagio Group. Beatrice's research addresses policy related questions in international macroeconomics, financial crises, climate change and growth. She has published widely in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Development Economics and Review of Finance. Recent publications have focused on, European integration, debt sustainability, the global financial architecture, the war in Ukraine, climate change and inflation.
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Organizers