Press Release No. 18/399

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde Names External Advisory Groups for the 2020 Comprehensive Surveillance Review

October 30, 2018

Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), today announced the formation of two external advisory groups consisting of economic, financial, and public policy experts to inform the IMF’s 2020 Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR). The periodic review seeks to explore the IMF’s effectiveness in monitoring global economic developments and delivering policy advice to its 189 member countries. It will be forward-looking in nature and framed by the global macro-financial environment and other secular trends, including digital technology. The review will guide the IMF’s operational priorities through 2025.

“To accomplish this task, the CSR will take account of the strategic challenges and opportunities facing the IMF and its membership in ensuring sustained, balanced, and inclusive global growth,” Managing Director Lagarde stated. “The review will also assess the Fund’s capabilities and how it can innovate and adapt to continue to provide value to our members.

“As we embark on the CSR, we are proud to have access to the expertise of two groups of eminent people. The first such group consists of thought leaders who will provide overall guidance on surveillance challenges facing the Fund and help us chart the course for new policy approaches to enhance economic prosperity and maintain global economic stability. And because the CSR will position the Fund’s surveillance function against the backdrop of the ongoing global technological transformation, we hope to richly benefit from leading thinkers and practitioners with experience in revolutionary industries in our second advisory group,” she added.

The External Advisory Group on Surveillance will serve as an independent check on staff analysis and will make recommendations that will be set out in the CSR. The Group will engage with Fund staff on the priorities and strategic direction of the review, and subsequently inform the emerging findings and staff’s preliminary recommendations. The Group’s independent views will be communicated to the IMF Executive Board, which will ultimately establish the Fund’s surveillance priorities.

The members of the Surveillance Group are:

Mr. Mohamed A. El-Erian. Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz.

Mr. Yiping Huang. Professor of Economics, National School of Development, Peking University.

Mr. Dani Rodrik. Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Ms. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Former President of Liberia. Joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Ms. Gertrude Tumpel Gugerell. Emerita Consultant, Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO).

Mr. Rodrigo Valdes. Former Finance Minister of Chile. School of Government, Catholic University

Mr. Guntram Wolff. Director of Bruegel.

The External Advisory Group on Digital Technology will provide guidance on potential macro-economic consequences and policy implications from important technological trends that are underway; and help the IMF develop new policy approaches in surveillance through the lens of technological change. The Group’s independent views will also be communicated to the Executive Board.

The members of the Digital Technology Group are:

Ms. Diana Farrell. Founding President and CEO of the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

Mr. Austan Goolsbee. Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Mr. Svein Andresen. Former Secretary General, Financial Stability Board.

Mr. Eric Xiandong Jing. Executive Chairman and CEO, Ant Financial Services Group.

Mr. Timothy Murphy. General Counsel, Mastercard.

Mr. Joshua Gans. Professor of Strategic Management and the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

The advisory groups for Surveillance and Digital Technology are expected to convene initially in November 2018. The CSR is expected to be concluded by Spring 2020.