Session 6: Economic Statistics
Everyone knows that the United States has a huge trade deficit and depends on foreign financing. Many say that implies an uncompetitive U.S. economy. But, impressions based on aggregate data can be deceiving. This session reviews what digging a little deeper into international data reveals about the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing, the consumption habits of the U.S. household, and global investing by U.S. and foreign financiers.
Sponsor: RGE Monitor
Presentations
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas slideshow
Links of Interest
Speakers
Maurine Haver
President
Haver Analytics
Maurine is President and founder of Haver Analytics Inc., an economic consulting and information services company. Prior to starting Haver Analytics in 1978, she was an economist in the economic forecasting group of General Electric in New York, a member of the International Staff of Companie Bull General Electric in Paris and a consultant in the Foreign Currency Exposure Management Group of the Chase Manhattan Bank in London.
Maurine served as President of the National Association of Business Economists (1994-95) and now chairs the NABE campaign for Quality Economic Data that she initiated during her year as president. In her role as Chair of the NABE Statistics Committee, she testifies before Congress on statistical issues, conducts quarterly meetings which bring together producers and users of federal statistics and organizes seminars to help users better understand the statistics available from government and private sources.
Maurine chairs the Business Research Advisory Council of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. She has served as secretary of the Forecasters Club of New York since 1992. She is a past president of the New York Association for Business Economics (1989-90), the Downtown Economists Club (1993-94) and the Money Marketeers of New York University (1998-99). She chaired the board of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) during 2001-2003. She currently serves on the board of Mutual of America and is a member of the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association and the National Economists Club.
Maurine holds a B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from Michigan State University, an M.B.A. from the Stern School of New York University and completed her oral exam for a PhD in International Economics at NYU.
Catherine L. Mann
Brandeis University
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Catherine L. Mann is a professor at the International Business School at Brandeis University, where her specialties include Empirical International Trade And Exchange Rates, Globalization Of Information Technology And Venture Capital, and Information Technology And Development
She has also been a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics since 1997. Previously, she served as assistant director of the International Finance Division at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, senior international economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, and adviser to the chief economist at the World Bank.
She is author or coauthor of two books that focus on the policy foundations for effective use of technology for domestic development and external competitiveness. APEC and the New Economy (2002) was presented to and endorsed by APEC Leaders at their meeting in Shanghai, China. Global Electronic Commerce: A Policy Primer (2000) uses general analysis and specific examples from field research in more than 10 countries to address how the Internet and electronic commerce affect policymaking, with particular focus on infrastructure and policy issues of taxation, privacy, security, intellectual property, and trade negotiations. In addition she directs a project funded by the Ford Foundation to support collaborative research comparing Asian and Latin American countries on how technology affects entrepreneurship, government, education and skills, and financial intermediation. She has delivered keynote speeches and engaged in projects on technology and policy in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, as well as in Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, and New Zealand.
She also studies broader issues of US trade, the sustainability of the current account, and the exchange value of the dollar. Published in 1999, Is the US Trade Deficit Sustainable? answers perennial questions about the impact of global integration on the US economy and the dollar. A Journal of Economic Perspectives (2002) article reviews concepts of sustainability, including the role of international financial markets and international trade in services, topics also addressed in "How Long the Strong Dollar?" in Dollar Overvaluation and the World Economy, edited by John Williamson and C. Fred Bergsten, and in "The US Current Account, New Economy Services, and Implications for Sustainability" in the Review of International Economics.
She received her PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her undergraduate degree is from Harvard University.
Brad Setzer
Roubini Global Economics
Brad Setser is the Senior Economist at RGE Monitor and plays an essential role in guiding its coverage and analysis. Brad served at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1997 to 2001, where he ultimately became the acting director of the Office of International Monetary and Financial Policy. Subsequently as a visiting scholar at the IMF, Dr. Setser worked on the IMF's proposals to improve the sovereign debt restructuring process and helped to explore the implications of balance sheet analysis for crisis prevention and crisis resolution.
Dr. Setser has most recently been an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where his views on sovereign debt, currency reform and the financing of Iraq's reconstruction were frequently quoted in the press. He also co-authored Bailouts or Bail-ins? Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies (Institute for International Economics: 2004) with Professor Roubini. Dr. Setser has a master and doctorate from Oxford, a DEA (Masters) from Sciences-PO, Paris and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas
University of California, Berkeley
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas grew up in France where he attended Ecole Polytechnique. He received his PhD in 1996 from MIT and taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Princeton University before joining UC Berkeley department of economics.
Professor Gourinchas' main research interests are in international macro-economics and finance. His recent research focuses on the importance of the valuation channel for the dynamics of external adjustment and the determination of exchange rates (with Hélène Rey); on the determinants of capital flows to and from developing countries (with Olivier Jeanne); and on global imbalances (with Ricardo Caballero and Emmanuel Farhi).
