62nd Annual Meeting and Conference

Keynote Presentation: Complementarities in Innovative Economic Policy Design

Abstract: Identifying sustainability, inclusion, local economic development and resilience as key components of a development strategy requires adopting a new economic benchmark model. Such a model brings the best of economic research from the past four decades to bear on these problems in a coherent way. I will argue that the state, the market and civil society offer complementary mechanisms to solve economic problems. Using illustrations from contemporary economic development, I will make the case for a new lens to frame some of the Philippine’s development challenges. Economics and the economic development strategy need to be renewed together.

Professor Wendy Carlin FBA is Professor of Economics in the Economics Department at UCL, Research Fellow of the CEPR and external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research is on macroeconomics, institutions and economic performance, the economics of transition, and evolution of economic research and education. Her fourth macroeconomics book, subtitled ‘Institutions, instability, and inequality’ co-authored with David Soskice was published in 2024. She is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel of the Office for Budget Responsibility. She leads the CORE Econ project, which is changing economics education around the world (www.core-econ.org) and is co-director of the Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality and the Economy at UCL. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to economics and public finance, in 2022 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2022 as Fellow of the British Academy. She is Vice President of the International Economic Association.
 

Closing Plenary Lecture: Vision for the Philippines’ Sustainable Economic Growth

Abstract: While high schooling level of working population is an important necessary condition for economic growth, it does not guarantee high and successful growth. Indeed, the Philippine economy is characterized by relatively high schooling level but low GDP per capita. While schooling is generally conducive to the formation of general human capital, accumulation of specific human capital is also needed for economic growth. In my view, failure of the Philippine economy stems from the failure to accumulate relevant specific human capital. My case studies have identified three common key factors promoting sustainable growth of high-performing East Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. First is learning technology and management from abroad. Second is investment in human capital of business leaders and other major decision-makers to enhance their learning ability. Third is to generate multi-faceted innovation, encompassing technological and managerial innovations. I strongly recommend the Philippines to set up institutions to learn from abroad and provide training of management and technology to major decision-makers in the economy in order to stimulate innovations.

Professor Keijiro Otsuka is an honorary professor at Kobe University’s Research Institute of Economics and Business Administration, in Japan. He received a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1979. He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of International Rice Research Institute from 2004 to 2007, President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists from 2009 to 2012, and President of the Japanese Association for Development Economics from 2019 to 2024. His research covers agricultural and industrial development in both Asia and Africa. He is coauthor or coeditor of 29 books and 148 articles in internationally renowned journals. He is the fellow of International, American, African, Asian, and Japanese Associations of Agricultural Economists. He is also a member of Japan Academy since 2018 and the winner of the Purple Ribbon Medal and the Orders of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star from the Japanese government.