Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008

Time: 12:00 to 1:30 pm

Venue: Room I-8-172

Sponsors: Economic Policy Group (LCSPE) and Office of the Chief Economist (LCRCE)

Trade and Competitiveness Lecture Series: This is the THIRD of a four-lecture series sponsored by LCSPE in collaboration with the Chief Economist's Office (LCRCE) on Trade and Competitiveness.  The first two lectures discussed Preferential Trade Agreements.  The THIRD and FOURTH lectures will cover Trade and Industrial Policy.

Summary: Does what you produce matter for development? Traditional arguments for directed industrial policies have often relied upon the presence of externalities and/or coordination failures in production. Theoretically, economic welfare and growth may improve by concentrating resources in the production of those goods that generate positive externalities. Similarly, coordination failures between upstream and downstream suppliers of goods imply that potentially profitable industries may never emerge. Trade policy, by influencing the output mix, can affect growth rates and economic welfare. Two lectures will review the theoretical analysis of activist industrial policy and the methodology and findings of the empirical literature that has investigated these questions. Emphasis will be placed on recent developments in the economics literature, including the theoretical and empirical analysis of agglomeration in production, diversification in product and the role of new goods.

Speaker: Presenting the lectures will be Pravin Krishna, Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).   Before coming to Johns Hopkins, he was a full professor at Brown University.  His areas of research interest and specialization include international economics and political economy.   His theoretical and empirical research has been published in leading journals in economics such as the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of International Economics.  Recent publications include Trade Blocs: Economics and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and (with Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya) Trading Blocs: Alternative Approaches to Analyzing Preferential Trade Agreements, (MIT Press, 1999).   He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay and a PhD in economics from Columbia University.

External participants are requested to send an email to Hazel Vargas at hvargas@worldbank.org.  .

The last lecture in this series will be held on July 3, 2008 at 12:00-1:30 p.m. in Room I 8-172.  We look forward to your continued participation.

Contact: Hazel M. Vargas, hvargas@worldbank.org