IMF Conference

IMF Conference

IMF Offices in Europe
December 3, 2010
66 avenue d'Iena, 75116 Paris, France

Together with the Paris School of Economics (PSE), the European, Fiscal Affairs, and Research Departments, the IMF Offices in Europe are organizing a high-level seminar on "The Political Economy of Crisis-Induced Reforms" on December 3, 2010.

Conventional wisdom states that high growth makes structural reform less costly, but also less urgent, while negative growth or outright crisis makes reform more urgent, but also more costly. A protracted period of weak economic activity may constitute the worst of both worlds, with growth still too fast to make reforms urgent and yet too slow to cushion their costs. If the conventional wisdom is correct, does the prospect of a very slow post-crisis recovery mean that Europe is condemned to reform-inertia? Or, does the experience inside or outside of Europe provide reason to hope that policy-makers in Europe can, with patience and appropriate sequencing of measures, make much-needed progress on an agenda of reforms to strengthen fiscal policy-making and boost potential output growth?

To address these questions, the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and the International Monetary Fund are jointly hosting a one-day high-level seminar on "The Political Economy of Crisis-Induced Reforms." The seminar will take place on December 3, 2010, at the IMF's Paris Office. The seminar aims at promoting a sharing of experience among participants (policy-makers, academics, and staff from international organizations), with the PSE and IMF serving as facilitators, to learn from practical experience and research about how to accelerate the reform process in Europe at this critical moment.

Separately, a working session with a more strictly academic focus will take place on December 2, jointly organized by the Chaire Banque de France at PSE and the IMF Research Department. The conclusions of this session will feed into the December 3 high-level seminar.

The event is by invitation only.