IEA Update from Dani Rodrik
I want to update you on the activities of the IEA.
The most important development to report is that our project on Advancing Women in Leadership in Economics, with the acronym IEA-WE, has been fully launched. This is a multi-year project that has been generously funded by Co-Impact Foundation and the Open Society Foundation.
The IEA-WE project team has expanded to include María Inés Beniell (Universidad Nacional de la Plata and CEDLAS) and Fiona Tregenna (University of Johannesburg), who joined Ashwini Deshpande (project leader), Raquel Fernández, and me as team members. We also formed an Advisory Group for IEA-WE, which includes Radhika Balakrishnan (Rutgers University), Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), Wendy Carlin (University College London, CEPR and Santa Fe Institute), Marcela Eslava (Universidad de los Andes), Rohini Pande (Yale) and Leonard Wantchekon (Princeton). The purpose of the Advisory Group is to provide feedback and recommendations on the initiative.
IE-WE was inaugurated with a virtual global event jointly organized with Project Syndicate (on March 22), titled “What Economics is missing.” The event featured Ashwini Deshpande, Raquel Fernández, Minouche Shafik, Vera Songwe, and myself as speakers. You can watch the video here.
We have appointed Navika Mehta as economist-editor to manage the amplifying women economists’ voice component of the initiative.
The core countries covered by the project are: Argentina, Colombia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Senegal, and South Africa. Following an open call, we selected teams for each of these countries, to produce a comprehensive database on women in the economics profession of these countries. Members of these teams are: Mariana Viollaz, Mariana Marchionni, María Florencia Pinto and María Edo (Argentina), Maria del Pilar López-Uribe (Colombia), Abena Oduro and Gloria Afful-Mensah (Ghana), Ambrish Dongre, Upasak Das and Karan Singhal (India), Eva Olimpia Arceo-Gómez (Mexico), Albertine Bayompe Kabou, Babacar Ndiaye and Cathérine Dalle (Senegal) and Nicola Branson and Emma Whitelaw (South Africa).
We are undertaking qualitative surveys for each of these countries as well. We have contracted with Monica Biradavolu from Qualanalytics for managing the qualitative component of our study.
Finally, we have solicited research proposals for specific interventions to advance women in the profession, with preference for studies focusing on our core countries. The objective is to generate evidence on interventions that are effective and successful in lowering the gender gap in economics. Proposals are currently under review by the team. For news and details about these activities, please see the IEA-WE website on our home page.
As part of the IEA-WE project, we have partnered with Project Syndicate to produce a monthly commentary series, including a multi-channel campaign to further promote the commentaries and the female economists who author them. We are also working with VoxEU and other platforms to publish articles written by women in economics.
Under the leadership of Lorenzo Caliendo and within the framework of the IEA´s mission, we have developed a Code of Conduct that recommends the adoption of best practices for the promotion of the economics profession, in its multiple facets. The Code of Conduct was submitted to member associations for feedback and will be submitted for final approval to the Council and Executive Committee shortly.
We continue to highlight the work of a different economist from around the world in our Featured Economists section (see here). Since February we have featured Belinda Archibong (Columbia University), Hundanol Kebede (Southern Illinois University), Sophie Osotimehin (University of Quebec), Dalia Ghanem (University of California, Davis), Farid Farrokhi (Purdue University), Marlène Koffi (University of Toronto), and Una Osili (Indiana University).
The newly created working group on “Dealing with Debt” held two panels. The first panel “A Framework to Evaluate Adjustment-cum-debt Restructuring Deals” took place on February 1 with Jeromin Zettlemeyer as moderator, Reza Baqir, Ishac Diwan and myself as speakers. Simon Cueva, Shanta Devarajan, Celestin Monga and Carmen Reinhart were discussants. The second panel “Discussing Debt Restructuring-cum Economic Adjustment Deals in Zambia and Sri-Lanka” was held on March 17 with Deborah Brautigam, Sharmini Coorey, Jayati Gosh, and Grieve Chelwa. Background pieces and videos are available here.
Our Working Group on “Technology, Jobs, and Development,” held a panel on January 31, on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Appropriate Technology,” organized by Jacob Moscona, and featuring Mireille Kamariza, Anton Korinek, and Nathan Nunn, in addition to Moscona.
We announced the Third Stiglitz Essay Prize (SEP) in honour of the past President of the association, Joseph E. Stiglitz. A call for essays is open in two categories; undergraduate and graduate. This prize is being made possible thanks to the generous donation that the Economic Society of Australia pledged to the IEA.
The RIDGE Forum was held in person on May 15-19 in CAF, Montevideo with workshops on Gender and Household Economics, Labor, Inequality & Poverty, Behavioural Economics, Political Economy, Public Economics, Health Economics, Historical Development, The Economics of Crime and Impact Evaluation held in Vanderbilt. Call for papers for the upcoming 2023 RIDGE December Forum is open here and RIDGE Summer school here.
Organizationally, we have sought nominations from our member associations to replace exiting officers and have recently submitted a proposal for incoming members. The proposal includes the creation of a Diversity Committee. The next Council meeting is scheduled to take place in person on December 13 in Medellin when the proposal will be submitted for approval by the Council.
Regarding the next IEA World Congress, to be held in Medellin, Colombia on December 11-15, 2023 we published the program on Aug 1. Around 480 selected papers will be presented in contributed sessions along with several plenaries, panels and invited academic and policy sessions.
I am happy to report that we welcomed a new member to the IEA: the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE).
I look forward to your comments and continued participation in our events and activities and to seeing all of you at the World Congress in Medellin in December.
Dani Rodrik
IEA
