The Fourth IMF Statistical Forum

Washington D.C.

November 17-18, 2016

The International Monetary Fund held the Fourth IMF Statistical Forum on Statistics for Inclusive Growth in Washington D.C. on November 17–18, 2016.

The topics covered during this year's forum include: Statistics and Financial Inclusion; Tracking and Tackling Rising Inequality; Gauging Economic Activity Outside the Boundary; Emerging Data Demands; and Measurement in a World of Globalized Production.

Conference Photos

Agenda

Thursday, November 17, 2016 - Day One
7:30am
Registration (IMF HQ2 Atrium)
8:00am
Continental Breakfast (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 1)
8:45am
Introductory Remarks
Louis Marc Ducharme, Director, Statistics Department, IMF
9:00am
Opening Remarks
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF

Video

9:20am
Keynote Speech
Ravi Kanbur, T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics, Cornell University

Video

Presentation

10:00am

Session I. Access for Everyone: Statistics and Financial Inclusion

Financial inclusion has at least two dimensions: access to microfinance, and universal access to an account providing payment services and safekeeping of savings. Here we ask what the data show about progress in achieving financial inclusion and about what works and what doesn’t. Also, what role has statistics played in microfinance? And how has mobile banking affected the lives of the poor?

Video

Chair:

Haishan Fu, Director of Development Data Group, World Bank

Speakers:

Jonathan Morduch, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, NYU

Presentation

Paper

Thorsten Beck, Professor of Banking and Finance, Cass Business School, City University London

Presentation

Paper

Discussants:

Martin Čihák, Advisor, Monetary and Capital Markets Department, IMF

Presentation

Leora Klapper, Lead Economist, World Bank

Presentation

11:30am
Coffee Break and Exhibition Visit (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 1 and Atrium)
12:00pm

Session II: Tracking and Tackling Rising Inequality

Rising inequality and stagnating growth have led to a resurgence of interest in questions about the distribution of income, saving, and wealth and a renewed appreciation of the benefits of integration of micro and macro data. At the same time, quality problems with survey data are growing. The session will investigate what we can learn from the existing distributional data, potential new approaches to collecting and using distributional data, and strategies for improving the availability and quality of distributional data.

Video

Chair:

Shaida Badiee, ‎Managing Director and Co-founder, Open Data Watch

Speaker:

Sabina Alkire, Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, and Professor of Economics, George Washington University

Presentation

Discussants:

Pali Lehohla, Statistician General, Statistics South Africa

Presentation

Conchita D’Ambrosio, Professor of Economics at University of Luxembourg

Presentation

1:00pm
Lunch (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 2)
2:30pm

Session III: What Are We Missing? Activity Outside the Boundary

Some production and consumption takes place outside the boundary of legally registered businesses, and also outside the boundary of what is included in our statistical measurement frameworks. In the former case, the informal sector has long been a source of employment in many economies, but difficulties in collecting data may lead to underestimation of its contribution to an economy’s employment and output. In the latter case, the recent growth of the digital economy has brought large benefits from free online services of information, entertainment, and social connection. Despite calls from data users to measure these benefits, they do not seem to fit inside the boundaries of existing statistical frameworks.

Video

Chair:

Sharmini Coorey, ‎Director, Institute for Capacity Development, IMF

Speaker:

Roberto Olinto, Director of Surveys, Institute of Geography and Statistics of Brazil (IBGE)

Presentation

Martine Durand, Chief Statistician and Director of Statistics Directorate, OECD

Presentation

Paper

Discussants:

Sugata Marjit, Reserve Bank of India, Professor of Industrial Economics, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta India

Presentation

Marshall Reinsdorf, Senior Economist, Statistics Department, IMF

Presentation

4:00pm
Coffee Break (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 1)
4:15pm

Panel Discussion on Emerging Data Demands

Some questions for discussion by the panel are:

(1) Are existing statistics adequate to monitor progress on inclusive growth and other focuses of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

(2) Does the digital economy create a need for new kinds of statistics or changes in existing statistics?

(3) How can we handle trade-offs between developing new statistics to support evolving policy needs, and improving the quality of existing statistics? What is the role of non-traditional statistics or approaches, such as big data?

Video

Moderator:

J. Steven Landefeld, ‎Distinguished Visiting Professor, United States Naval Academy and Consultant to the United Nations and Former Director of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Presentation

Panelists:

Stefan Schweinfest, Director, United Nations Statistics Division

Presentation

Claire Melamed, Executive Director, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

Presentation

Julio Santaella, President of National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Mexico

Presentation

5:30pm
Questions and Discussion from the Floor
6:00pm
Cocktail Reception (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 2)
Friday, November 18, 2016 - Day Two
8:30am
Continental Breakfast (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 1)
9:15am

Session IV: Measurement in a World of Globalized Production

Global supply chains and the fragmentation of the production process into multiple functions such as design, sourcing, assembly, testing, marketing and oversight pose new challenges to measurement of the output of individual economies and traditionally defined industries. Effects of tax incentives on the actual or purported distribution of production of multinational corporations across the locations in which they operate compound the measurement problems. Globalization of production has also had major implications for labor markets worldwide. Are new kinds of statistics or statistical methods needed to cope with these challenges and to track economic developments in a globalized world?

Video

Chair:

Maurice Obstfeld, Economic Counsellor and Research Department Director, IMF

Speaker:

Robert Feenstra, C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in International Economics, University of California

Presentation

Paper

Discussants:

Marcel Timmer, Professor and Director of the Economic Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Presentation

J. Steven Landefeld, Distinguished Visiting Professor, United States Naval Academy and Consultant to the United Nations and Former Director of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Presentation

10:30am
Coffee Break (IMF HQ2 Conference Hall 1)
11:00am

Roundtable Discussion

The conclusions of the individual sessions will be discussed with the focus being on the way forward for statistics to meet evolving demands for data, remain relevant as IT changes the way we live and work, and better serve the needs of policy makers and other data users.

Video

Chair:

Tao Zhang, Deputy Managing Director, IMF

Panelists:

Abebe Selassie, Director of the African Department, IMF
Julio Santaella, President of INEGI, Mexico
Barry Bosworth, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Program, Robert V. Roosa Chair in International Economics, Brookings Institution, USA
Jaana Remes, Partner at McKinsey Global Institute
12:30pm
Closing Remarks
Louis Marc Ducharme, Director, Statistics Department, IMF

Forum Program Committee (all IMF):

Louis Marc Ducharme (Chair), Florina Tanase

Forum Coordinators: Marshall Reinsdorf, José Maria Cartas, and Zula Oimandakh (STA); Jim Beardow and Ping Wang (COM); Elad Meshulam and Luisa Menjivar (Multimedia Services)

Disclaimer

The website contains papers and web links to papers that will be presented at the Fourth IMF Statistical Forum. The views expressed in these papers and presentations are those of the authors only, and the presence of them, or of links to them, on the IMF website does not imply that the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management endorses or shares the views expressed in the papers.