Message from IEA President Kaushik Basu

Dear IEA Friends,

The last few months have been, for all of us, including our friends, relatives and colleagues, stranger and harder than any of us would have predicted even six months ago. The COVID-19 pandemic has been coursing through the world, causing pain and suffering. As economists, it is impossible not to be concerned that its full spillover-effect on the economy is yet to come. This will cause great hardship, especially in developing countries and among the world’s poor.

For the IEA, like all important organizations and institutes in the world, this has been a time of cancelled events, postponed programs, and uncertainty. I was among the optimistic ones for a long time (in retrospect it almost feels foolish) that we would be able to hold the World Congress in July this year. But, as we decided some months ago and announced, it had to be postponed. We have since then been in touch with our Indonesian hosts and have decided to hold the World Congress from 2^nd to 6^th July, 2021, in Bali. I really hope to see all of you there, and I hope it will be an intellectually fulfilling and joyous occasion.

One consequence of the postponement is that the switch over to new office bearers also had to be postponed. IEA statutes are clear that the transition to new office bearers has to take place during the World Congress. So we have little choice in the matter. I have now had meetings on this with Dani Rodrik and Omar Licandro. Dani will take over as President in July 2021. The same goes for the treasurer and general secretary. Likewise, the current EC stays in place until the Council can meet and elect new members.

Over the last 6 months a lot of IEAs activities have been stalled, especially because we hoped that with a little postponement we would be able to have some of these events in-person. I myself was engaged in organizing an IEA Roundtable of Law and Economics in Delhi, in March this year, with collaborative help from the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, and Cornell University, Ithaca. This had to be postponed. We are now planning on doing this virtually, sometime during the coming winter.

The short booklet on the International Economic Association’s history of nearly 70 years, that we were going to commission and have a first meeting in Bali in July this year, was put on hold. But we have now decided we will start work on this, instead of waiting all the way till July next year, and hopefully have some work-in-progress presentation in Bali in July.

Over the last several years, RIDGE has been one of the most active research colloquia under the umbrella of IEA. Unfortunately, the 2020 RIDGE May Forum had to be postponed and it will take place online jointly with the 2020 RIDGE December Forum from 7-18 of December, 2020, involving 15 different workshops with almost 200 speakers. It is being organized in partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Central Bank of Uruguay, and other institutions, and with the support of the Uruguayan Minister of Economics and Finance.

Amidst all the stalling and postponement, I am happy to share with you the news that we managed to have a valuable Webinar on “Developing Nations and COVID-19”, jointly organized by IEA and UK’s Royal Economic Society. It was chaired by our former President Tim Besley, with talks given by Haroon Bhorat, Ashwini Deshpande, Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva, Dani Rodrik, Albert Zeufack.

I am pleased to inform you that IEA has been actively supporting the Core Economics website project, led by Wendy Carlin, which is a platform for providing open access teaching material for economics students and to improve undergraduate teaching curricula. We were in particular supporting Core Economics website’s effort to translate teaching material from English to Spanish. I was very happy on learning recently that all 22 units are now available in Spanish and on open access: https://www.ts3medya.com/the-economy/book/es/text/0-6-contributors.html#producci%C3%B3n-de-la-econom%C3%ADa

To close on a personal note, I had gone to India for a few days of meetings and lectures in March and got caught in the lockdown for 3 months in Mumbai, suitcase in hand. I returned to New York in late May and am now back in Ithaca, restarting work on some of my research projects and also preparing, with some trepidation, for a semester of zoom teaching, starting at the end of this month.

I know it is not easy but do try to stay safe and well and get back to work so that, miserable though the current situation is the world over, we are able to re-emerge in a better and a more sustainable world.

Kaushik Basu

14 August 2020