In Institutions We Trust? The Economics of Institutional Change

Both the 2008 global financial crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic have profoundly impacted our economies and livelihoods. A global crisis affects popular trust in our institutions’ capacity to deal with the challenges ahead, acting as a stress test on national and global institutions.

Both the 2008 global financial crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic have profoundly impacted our economies and livelihoods. A global crisis affects popular trust in our institutions’ capacity to deal with the challenges ahead, acting as a stress test on national and global institutions. Such crises have historically been defining moments in re-designing and improving institutions. The American Civil War and resulting debt crisis contributed to federating the United States. The human and economic ravages of World War II were key to European unification. Policy failures in the 1930s economic crisis redefined international cooperation. Poverty and other economic mutations triggered the extension of voting rights in the nineteenth century, which in turn produced a noticeable drop in inequality.

Are we now at a similar juncture? Do we need to redesign our institutions to take on the economic and environmental challenges ahead, and how? A group of renowned academics and policymakers who each have a deep global understanding of institutions and how they have operated and evolved will address these questions.
For more information, please visit the event page. 

This event is sponsored by Georgetown University Global Economic Challenges (GEC) Network, Université libre de Bruxelles (Solvay), the Joint Research Center of the European Commission and the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Featuring:   
Professor Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Laurence Boone, Chief Economist at OECD

Marco Buti, Chief of Staff of the European Commissioner for the Economy

Professor Mathias Dewatripont, Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles, SBS-EM

Moderated by Shéhérazade Semsar-de Boisséson , CEO of Politico Europe