IMF Conference

Ninth Annual Richard Goode Lecture: Persistence and Transformation in Economic Development

In-Person Event held in the IMF Headquarters 2

November 27, 2023

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will hold its ninth annual Richard Goode Lecture on November 27, 2023. The Richard Goode Lecture is an annual event hosted by the Fiscal Affairs Department for top academics to present their cutting-edge research on topical policy issues in front of a broad audience of policy makers, academics, and representatives from international organizations.

The theme of this year’s seminar is “Persistence and Transformation in Economic Development” presented by Professor Melissa Dell, Harvard University. This lecture will focus on the impact of institutional persistence on long-run economic development. She will present case studies to illustrate these effects and emphasize the value of new methods, such as deep learning.

Professor Dell is the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Her research focuses on economic growth and political economy. She has examined the factors leading to the persistence of poverty and prosperity in the long run, the effects of trade-induced job loss on crime, the impacts of U.S. foreign intervention, and the effects of weather on economic growth. She has also developed deep learning powered methods for curating social science data at scale. This work supports many of her current projects, which rely on digitizing historical sources.

Professor Dell is the 2020 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded each year to an American economist under the age of forty who has made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. In 2018, The Economist named her one of the decade’s eight best young economists. She was also on the IMF’s 2014 “25 Brightest Young Economists” list.