International economist to speak on financial reform at Rice’s Baker Institute Nov. 3

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

The recent global financial crisis led to a number of economic reforms worldwide designed to manage the effects of the crisis and to prevent similar events in the future.

José Antonio Ocampo Gaviria, the Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, will discuss those efforts Nov. 3 in a talk at the Baker Institute titled “International Financial Reform: Can We Avert the Next Bust?”

	OCAMPO

Ocampo will examine the initiatives in five major areas: macroeconomic policy coordination, including support to developing countries during crises; better regulation and supervision of financial systems; sovereign debt restrictions; reform of the dollar-based global monetary system; and institutional reforms, including the new role assumed by the Group of 20.

Ocampo will discuss whether these initiatives are enough to manage the current crisis and the deficits in global governance. He will also summarize some of the major recommendations of the Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, convened by the president of the United Nations General Assembly, of which he was a member.

The lecture will begin at 6 p.m. in James A. Baker III Hall’s Kelly International Conference Facility.

Ocampo was the United Nations undersecretary general for economic and social affairs until mid-2007. In this post, he directed the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs and chaired the United Nations’ Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs.

Rice faculty, staff and students who want to attend must RSVP by e-mail (bipprsvp@rice.edu), by fax (713-348-5993) or on the Web at http://bit.ly/27IeRv.