M-RCBG Senior Fellow-Led Study Group: Ted Truman
Wednesday, April 28, 4:30-5:30pm
Zoom meeting: registration is required. Please use a Harvard.edu email address if available.
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIvdumhpjMvGteA88PDVnRPRgeg6F9r6h-z
This study group will explore the future of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Drawing Right (SDR). The SDR instrument was established in 1968 to reinforce the Bretton Woods international monetary system. IMF members agreed to issue SDR on the eve of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and again in the late 1970s. For the next three decades the SDR was in deep freeze. In response to the global financial crisis in 2009, the IMF issued $250 billion SDR. In response to the corona virus pandemic, the IMF is about to issue another $650 billion SDR. This study group will review the mechanics and history of the SDR, consider the arguments for and against issuing SDR, and speculate whether the instrument has a robust future, and if so, what that future might be.
Edwin (Ted) M. Truman was a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) from 2001 until December 31, 2020. In 2013 he became a non-resident senior fellow. Before joining PIIE, he was assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury from 1998 to January 2001. He returned to the Treasury as counselor to the secretary from March 2009 to May 2009. Prior to his service at the Treasury, he was director of the division of international finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from June 1977 until October 1998 and economist on the Federal Open Market Committee (1983 to 1998). He joined the staff of the Federal Reserve in 1972 while on leave from Yale University where he was on the faculty of the economics department (1967 to 1974). He received his PhD in economics from Yale in 1967, his B.A. from Amherst College in 1963, and an honorary L.L.D. from Amherst in 1988. He is an international macro-economist having published on international economic policy coordination, international financial crises, exchange rates, sovereign wealth funds, anti-money laundering, inflation targeting, the International Monetary Fund, and European economic integration. In addition to teaching at Yale, he taught off and on at Amherst College and Williams College (2006 to 2018). He served on numerous international working groups and as an alternate member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (1994 to 1998). As a senior fellow at M-BCBG, he will continue his research on the international coordination of economic policies. His faculty sponsor is Robert Lawrence, Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, Harvard Kennedy School. Email: etruman@hks.harvard.edu