Global crisis and the impact on emerging economies

United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) is pleased to announce the following seminar by Kaushik Basu, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics of the World Bank

Global Crisis and the Impact on Emerging Economies

After seeming to weather the initial shock from the Great Recession well, emerging economies faced a sharp slowdown from 2011, raising interesting questions about the nature of coupling and decoupling of economies. Economic growth in the developing world is expected to be in the 5 to 6 per cent range this year and next. But a lot will depend on what happens in the eurozone and EU countries. The on-going fiscal consolidation, high unemployment and very weak consumer and business confidence in the euroarea, as well as the weakness in Japan’s export-dependent industrial sector, continue to weigh on global economic activity. In addition, Kaushik Basu will argue that there are various debt cliffs looming on the eurozone horizon that we ought to take early note of. There is a natural propensity on our part to look away from unpleasant problems till they are too close, as happened in the case of the USA 'fiscal cliff'. But it is imperative to gaze into the future to prepare ourselves better for what is likely in store for us. This is especially important for emerging economies and vulnerable developing countries.

Kaushik Basu is Senior Vice President for Development Economist and World Bank Chief Economist. He was until recently the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, and earlier was Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University. Previoulsy he was Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, where in 1992 he founded the Centre for Development Economics in Delhi. His contributions to economics span development economics, welfare economics, industrial organization, and public economics.  He has published widely, including 160 papers in refereed journals and scholarly volumes. In May 2008, he was awarded one of India’s civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, by the President of India.

Kaushik Basu gave the WIDER Annual Lecture in 2003 on the topic of ‘Global Labour Standards and Local Freedoms’. His association with UNU-WIDER goes back to the institute’s very earliest years in the 1980s when he published a series of UNU-WIDER working papers on globalization and poverty,international debt, surplus labour, share tenancy, and land tenure.