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Finance & Development

December’s issue of Finance & Development explores the rising cost of housing and solutions to affordability concerns.

Press Briefing by Julie Kozack, Director, Communications Department

Julie Kozack, Communications Department Director of the IMF discusses Syria, Argentina, the US Fed and other relevant developments.

Podcasts

Elizabeth Johnson on Fixing Sao Paolo’s Housing Deficit
December 19, 2024

As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, affordable housing is a rare commodity in many cities. Sao Paolo­, South America’s biggest city, has gained over 2 million new residents in the past decade alone. Elizabeth Johnson heads Brazil research at TS Lombard and has been studying Sao Paolo’s latest attempt at strengthening its housing strategy. In this podcast, Johnson says the city looked to its largely abandoned downtown core to address its housing woes. Transcript

Read the article in the IMF's Finance and Development Magazine

Deniz Igan on The Housing Affordability Crunch
December 12, 2024

While housing markets play a significant role in economies, new research shows houses across 40 countries are less affordable than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. IMF economist Deniz Igan helped develop the Housing Affordability Index. In this podcast, she says the pandemic triggered an unusual sequence of events that housing markets around the world are still struggling to correct. Transcript

Read the article in the IMF's Finance and Development Magazine

Driving Change: Ipek Ilkkaracan on Why Investing in Care Pays Off
December 4, 2024

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up

The International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empirical research, especially in developing countries. IMF Podcasts has partnered with the IEA-WE to produce a special series featuring the economists behind the invaluable local research that informs policymakers in places often overlooked. Driving Change kicks off this limited-run series from Turkey, with economist Ipek Ilkkaracan, who makes a strong business case for investing in social care infrastructure. Transcript

Other episodes include Kenyan economist Rose Ngugi, whose indices help local counties design policies that work, and Colombian economics Professor Marcela Eslava, whose research looks to fix Latin America’s dysfunctional social security network.

Special thanks to IEA-WE editor Navika Mehta for this collaboration.