Roundtable Discussion on New York Legislation for Sovereign Debt
October 23, 2023. World Bank Main Complex. Washington, D.C. Hosted by The World Bank Research Department, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), and the Institute of Global Politics (IGP) at Columbia University.
The IMF finds that 60 percent of low-income countries are either currently experiencing or at high risk of debt distress. Despite recent developments in contractual frameworks, the international debt architecture still has structural deficiencies that impede the resolution of debt crisis. One such deficiency is that the champerty law, which prohibited buying debt in default with intent of suing the issuer, was repealed from New York law in 2004. Since then, vulture funds have been able sue debtors, which imposes heavy costs on distressed debtors, citizens, and good-faith creditors. Meanwhile, the pre-judgment compensatory rate for debts in default under New York law—which governs more than half of percent of sovereign debt contracts—is 9%. As a result, reforming New York State law is an urgently needed step toward mitigating the global sovereign debt crisis.
A roundtable of experts, practitioners, and policymakers will meet at the World Bank Headquarters alongside the 2024 International Monetary Fund/World Bank annual meetings to discuss possible avenues for New York State legislation to establish a fair, expeditious debt restructuring framework.
Chairs of the discussion will be Chief Economist of the World Bank Indermit Gill, Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University; IPD) and Martín Guzmán (Columbia University, SIPA; IPD). Attendance is by invitation only.
Rethinking Capitalism at The New Yorker Festival
October 27, 2024. 3-4 pm. New York, New York. Hosted by The New Yorker.
Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University; IPD) will be in conversation with John Cassidy (The New Yorker) as part of the magazine’s annual festival. Cassidy writes a column about economics and politics for The New Yorker. Stiglitz’s most recent book, The Road to Freedom, reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society that has fractured by a series of crises including the financial crisis, opioid crisis, and the crisis of growing inequality. Cassidy and Stiglitz will engage in a conversation about reimagining the future of American capitalism.
Tickets are available
here.
New Thinking in Industrial Policy: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries
November 1-2, 2024. Columbia University, New York. Hosted by IPD and
Firms & Industrial Policy Idea Lab of the Center for Political Economy (CDEP) at Columbia University.
Industrial policy is back on policy agendas in the U.S., Europe, and many developing countries. IPD and CDEP at Columbia University will host a conference, “New Thinking on Industrial Policy: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries,” during which participants will discuss papers on the broad theme of industrial policy. Discussions will include both theoretical and empirical studies. We expect to announce the full program by October 1, 2024.
The academic committee for the event is: Bilge Erten (Northeastern University), Martín Guzmán (Columbia University), Reka Juhasz (University of British Columbia), Nathan Lane (Oxford University), Felipe Lobel (Columbia University), Juan Montecino (American University), Andrew Schrank (Brown University), Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University), Eric Verhoogen (Columbia University), and Josh Whitford (Columbia University).
You can find more information
here and register
here.
If you have questions, please contact Olena Jennings of CDEP at
omj2101@columbia.edu.
