The prominent Mexican economist and politician Santiago Levy, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, will give a keynote lecture on Friday, November 24 at the main headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, in which he will analyze the state of social protection and productivity in the region.
The scholar will be received by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary.
The presentation, which will begin at 11 a.m. local time in Chile (UTC/GMT -3), is part of the Keynote Lecture Series organized to commemorate ECLAC’s 75th anniversary.
Accomplished in public administration, academic research and university lecturing, Santiago Levy has served as general director of the Mexican Social Security Institute; deputy minister of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico; president of the Federal Competition Commission; and director of the Economic Deregulation Program at that country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade.
He was also chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, and he advised the United Nations Development Program on the Millennium Development Goals and the governments of Brazil, Egypt and Mauritius on policies for poverty reduction.
Santiago Levy holds a doctorate in economics and a Master's degree in political economy from Boston University, in addition to an honorary post-doctorate from Cambridge University.
He is the author of publications covering topics as diverse as poverty reduction, competitiveness, exchange rate policies, imbalances in exports, prices, microeconomics and energy. His article “Poverty in Mexico” won the Banco de México National Prize for Research in Economics in 1992. Other honors include the 1992 Latin American Economics Award from El Trimestre Económico for the article “Multiple Exchange Rates and Currency Rationing” (with Roberto Rosales); the World Bank Research Award for “Assessing the Mexico-US Free Trade Agreement,” with Anthony Venables and Sweder Van Wijnbergen; and an Honorable Mention in 1986 for the Banco de México National Prize for Research in Economics for the article “Short-Term Responses to Currency Crises.”
Levy will be the seventh lecturer to participate in the series organized to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of ECLAC, which was founded in 1948 as one of the United Nations’ five regional commissions.
The lecture series began on July 24 with a presentation by Arancha González Laya, Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), while August 18 marked the turn of prominent Colombian economist and former ECLAC Executive Secretary, José Antonio Ocampo.
On September 4, Aloizio Mercadante, President of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), gave a presentation on “The role of development banks in the transformation of the Latin American development model.” On September 28, Ricardo Hausmann, a Professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, delivered his lecture at ECLAC’s headquarters. And on October 25, Winston Dookeran, former Foreign Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and current Secretary-General of EUCLID University, visited ECLAC to speak about “Structure and Synergy in Development: The Caribbean Setting and its Future.”
Most recently, on November 14, the renowned Spanish philosopher and professor Adela Cortina gave a presentation entitled “Reactions to migration in Latin America and the Caribbean: migration, aporophobia and ethical challenges for humanity,” in which she advocated for a “democratization” of all countries in order to start building a global society and global justice.
In this series taking place through February 2024, other prominent thinkers will visit the Commission’s headquarters in Santiago to present their views and ideas about the challenges facing the world and the region. The full list of lecturers is available here.
Members of the media are invited to attend this keynote lecture by Santiago Levy, which will be held in the Celso Furtado conference room at ECLAC’s headquarters (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile). Journalists must have their media credentials or their IDs with them to gain entry and must get accredited in advance by sending an email to prensa@cepal.org.
The lecture will feature simultaneous interpretation in English.
What: Keynote lecture by Santiago Levy
Who:
When: Friday, November 24, 2023, 11:00 a.m. local time (UTC/GMT -03:00).
Where: ECLAC’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura), Celso Furtado conference room.
Virtual connection via various platforms:
ECLAC’s website: www.cepal.org
Live transmission: https://live.cepal.org/75aniversario/
Official account on X: https://twitter.com/cepal_onu
Official account on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cepal.onu
