Monday, April 4th, 2011 Tajikistan and the IMF: Lessons for Development Policies

Description

Using the case of Tajikistan, this lecture offers some general lessons for development policy, against the background of academic research from economics, but, more so, practical experience with IMF-operations (which are explained along the way).

Luc Moers is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Guelph (Department of Economics), and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Asia, on Leave from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). His latest positions at the IMF were those of Senior Economist, and, from 2006 until 2010, Resident Representative in Tajikistan. Managing the Representative Office in this Central Asian country, he was the main liaison between IMF headquarters and Tajik authorities, both at the highest and the technical levels. As such, he worked on economic analysis, policy reforms, technical assistance, donor coordination, diplomatic relations, and outreach to civil society and media. He joined the IMF in 2000, concentrating on transition and developing countries (apart from Tajikistan, in particular Estonia, Senegal, Yemen, and Bangladesh). He also worked at the World Bank (Development Economics Research Group), Dutch central bank (Monetary and Economic Policy Department), and Tinbergen Institute/University of Amsterdam (Department of Economics), from which he obtained his PhD. His main research interests are still well summarized by the title of his PhD-thesis, ‘Institutions, economic performance, and transition’. He also studied economics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and has published in refereed journals such as Economic Systems, Post-Communist Economies, and Journal for Institutional Innovation, Development, and Transition.