February 11, 2019: Taming Japan’s Deflation | 12-1:30 p.m. | Berkeley Haas , N340

by ClausenCenter | Jan 29, 2019 | Conferences, Events

Around the world, governments have delegated political independence to central banks that wield tremendous power based on the belief that independence would allow these institutions to keep inflation in check. From the mid-1990s, Japan’s economy charted a unique trajectory: it fell into deflation and never fully emerged from it for nearly the next twenty years. Only with the election of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe at the end of 2012 and his appointment in early 2013 of new leadership at Japan’s central bank, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), did Japan finally launch a policy course capable of pulling Japan fully out of deflation. This presentation explains the shift in BOJ policy and factors behind it.

Feb. 14, 2019: The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work

by ClausenCenter | Jan 22, 2019 | Conferences, Events

Richard Baldwin will give the Joan and Egon von Kaschnitz Lecture this Spring.

While globalization and robotics, “globotics”, will eventually make a better world, they are today creating competition for service-sector jobs that is coming faster than most believe and in ways that will seem incredibly unfair. If the displaced office workers join with the displaced factory workers, the result could be a disruptive upheaval. Richard Baldwin argues that workers need to prepare for the the future of work in new ways, and governments regulate the pace and unfairness of the competition from globots. Richard Baldwin is a Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and Founder and Editor of the economic policy portal, VoxEU.org.

The Lecture will take place on February 14 at 3 PM in Spieker Forum,
6th Floor Chou Hall.