IMF Conference

A citizen of France, Olivier Blanchard has spent most of his professional life in Cambridge, U.S. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, with whom he has been affiliated since then. He is the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics, and past Chair of the Economics Department. He has been on leave from MIT since 2008, as Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.

He is a macroeconomist, who has worked on a wide set of issues, from the role of monetary policy, to the nature of speculative bubbles, to the nature of the labor market and the determinants of unemployment, to transition in former communist countries, and to forces behind the current crisis. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations. He is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks in macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer, one at the undergraduate level.

He is a fellow and past council member of the Econometric Society, a past vice president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences.

Class of 1958 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, has written extensively on international macroeconomics and finance. Prior to coming to Berkeley in 1991, Professor Obstfeld taught at Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He has lectured widely around the world and has been a consultant for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Commission, the International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics, and numerous national central banks. He received the 2004 Harms Prize of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, has served on the executive committee and as vice president of the American Economic Association, and is a Fellow of both the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His major works include: Foundations of International Macroeconomics (1996, with Kenneth S. Rogoff); Global Capital Markets: Integration, Crisis, and Growth (2004, with Alan M. Taylor); and International Economics: Theory & Policy, 9th edition (2011, with Paul R. Krugman and Marc J. Melitz).

Stephen Pickford has worked on economic policy issues for most of his career. He retired recently from HM Treasury in London, where from 2007 to 2009 he was Managing Director (International and Finance), and G7 and G20 Finance Deputy.

Prior to this he held posts as both Director for Europe, and Director for International Finance in HM Treasury, with responsibility for international finance issues. From 1998 to 2001 he was the UK's Executive Director on the Boards of the IMF and World Bank.

Previous posts included leading the team responsible for Bank of England independence in 1997, and the 1988 Cabinet Office review of economic statistics; and he worked in the New Zealand Treasury between 1989 and 1993 on macroeconomic policy and forecasting. He studied economics at Cambridge, England and UBC, Vancouver.

Paul Rochon assumed the position of Associate Deputy Minister of Finance on July 1, 2010. He also serves as Canada's Finance Deputy at the G-7, G-20 and the Financial Stability Forum.

Prior to his appointment as Associate Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Rochon was Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of the Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch. The Branch is primarily responsible for maintaining the fiscal framework of the Government of Canada, developing the federal budget, and analyzing and forecasting economic and fiscal developments. He previously held a number of positions in the Economic and Fiscal Policy and Tax Policy branches of the Department of Finance, including Director of Fiscal Policy, Director of Intergovernmental Tax Policy and General Director of Economic and Fiscal Policy. He has been involved in the preparation of federal budgets in various capacities since 1995.

Prior to joining the Department of Finance Mr. Rochon worked for three years at the Conference Board of Canada. He holds a Bachelor's degree in History from McGill University and a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Toronto.

Christian Broda is a Managing Director at Duquesne Capital Management. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he served as a tenured Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. As a Professor he has published numerous articles and books on international finance and trade. His research has been published in top economic journals like the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and has been featured in the press like the Financial Times and The Economist. In 2005 and 2008, he was awarded two National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to support his research and he was named the James S. Kemperer Scholar during 2006 and 2008.

Dr. Broda also served appointments at Lehman Brothers as Chief International Economist, Barclays Capital as Head of International Research, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics, a faculty fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a co-editor of the IMF Economic Review and a member of the Latin American Association Economia journal.

He was raised in Argentina, is married and has two sons.