Emerging Markets, The Pacific Alliance and Chile

Time: Thu, October 10, 12:15pm – 1:45pm
Location: 1203 Van Munching Hall
Link: http://cissm.umd.edu/forum/display.php?id=613

This Forum is part of the Maryland Global Leaders program, which is cosponsored by the School of Public Policy and the Office of International Affairs.

Since March 2010, Felipe Larraín Bascuñán is the Minister of Finance of the Government of President Sebastián Piñera. PhD (1985) and Master of Arts (1983) in Economics from Harvard University, and  Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Universidad Católica de Chile (1981), he has a vast experience as an international consultant, academician, editor and author of more than 10 books and 120 professional articles, both published in Latin America, U.S.A., Europe and Asia. Since 1996, he has been a Professor of Economics at Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, where he previously served as Associate and Assistant Professor. From 1997 to 2002 he was affiliated to Harvard University, first as the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies (1997-99), then as Faculty Fellow (1999-2002). Since 1985, he has served as economic advisor to several American governments, including Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

Felipe Larraín has been a consultant on macroeconomic issues to the United Nations, the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He has also been a consultant to a number of Latin American and U.S. companies, and a board member of several companies and institutions in Chile, Latin America, the U.S. and Europe.

He is the editor and author of ten books, including: Desarrollo Económico en Democracia: Proposiciones para una Sociedad Libre y Solidaria (Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile: Santiago, 1987); Debt, Adjustment and Recovery: Latin America’s Prospects for Growth and Development (Basil Blackwell: Oxford and New York, 1989); The Public Sector and the Latin American Crisis (ICS Press: San Francisco, 1991); Chile Hacia el 2000 (CEP: Santiago, Chile, 1994); La Transformación Económica de Chile (CEP: Santiago, Chile, 2000); Capital Flows, Capital Controls and Currency Crises: Latin America in the 1990s (University of Michigan Press,  2000); Economic Development in Central America, Vols I and II (Harvard University Press, 2001); and Macroeconomics at Practice (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004).

His book Macroeconomics in the Global Economy, co-authored with Professor Jeffrey Sachs, (Prentice Hall:New Jersey; Harvester Wheatsheaf:  London, 1993), has been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and is currently in its second edition.

Minister Larraín has received several awards and honors, including: Finance Minister of the Year 2010, Region of the Americas, awarded by The Banker Magazine (of Finantial Times; London, 2011); Best Minister of Finance 2010 from Latin America, awarded by América Económica Magazine; Economist of the Year, chosen by his peers thru a survey made by Chilean Newspaper El Mercurio (Santiago, 2010); Minister of Finance 2010 for Latin America, awarded by Emerging Markets Magazine (Washington, D.C.); Bicentennial Economist, presented by the Young Leaders Association (Santiago, 2010); Doctor Honoris Causa (2009) of the American College of Paraguay; the 2002 Alumnae of the Year at the Faculty of Business and Economics of Universidad Católica; the Daniel Cosio Villegas award (1991), to one of the best three articles published in El Trimestre Económico during 1989-1990; an award from Magisterio Nacional Boliviano (1986) for a distinguished service as Economic Advisor to the President of Bolivia; the Raúl Yver Oxley award (1980) to the best student in his class at Universidad Católica; and the Luis Cruz Martínez award (1976) to the student with the highest score of the Chilean universities admissions exam and the best high school transcript of Chile.

 Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1958, he is married and the father of five children.