Dear IFM Program Members -
I am very grateful to the many program members who have contacted me
since Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas' appointment as the next Economic
Counsellor and Head of the Research Department at the IMF was announced
in January. Pierre-Olivier has been an outstanding program leader.
Friday's program meeting presents an opportunity for us collectively to
thank him for his service and to wish him all the best in his exciting
new role. The meeting agenda includes a break from 3:15-3:45pm ET. I
plan to re-convene the meeting at 3:30pm ET, rather than 3:45, and to
take that time to recognize Pierre-Olivier's contributions to the NBER.
I am also delighted to announce that Mark Aguiar and Linda Tesar have
agreed to serve as the program's new co-directors. They have both been
important contributors to the IFM program, and they are currently
members of the program's steering committee. My recent conversations
about the IFM program have given me a new appreciation of the broad span
of issues that it encompasses. Together, Mark and Linda's expertise
spans many of these issues. Mark's research ranges widely in both open-
and closed-economy macro, including sovereign debt, business cycles in
emerging markets, capital taxation, growth, and the microfoundations of
consumption and labor supply. Mark is the Walker Professor of Economics
and International Finance at Princeton University. Linda has very
diverse research interests as well, including cross-country business
cycle linkages, capital flows, especially to emerging markets, the
consequences of exchange rate exposure, and global risk-sharing. She is
a Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. I look forward
to working with Mark and Linda to build on the IFM program's past
successes and to launch new initiatives. Please join me in welcoming
them to their new roles.
I hope to see you, in person or on-line, at tomorrow's program meeting.
Thank you for your ongoing engagement with NBER, and all best wishes.
Jim Poterba
Received on Thu Mar 10 2022 - 11:15:38 EST
