Webinar Link

Meeting No: 2515 695 2817
Password: prosperity

Certificate of Participants

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Abstract

Progress depends on the choices made about technology. New ways of organizing production and communication can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity. The webinar shall discuss how cutting-edge technological advances can become empowering tools if distributed among masses

About the Speakers

Dr. Arvind Virmani

Arvind Virmani is member of NIti Aayog. He was Chairman of the Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare (EGROW) and President of the Forum For Strategic Initiatives (FSI, Delhi). He has been a Mentor (economic policy) to FICCI & a member of RBI Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary policy. He was earlier Executive Director, IMF and Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance and Principal Advisor, Planning Commission. During his tenure he advised on a host of economic policy reforms, through 100s of policy papers, notes and committees. He has served as Member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and as Director & Chief executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

He has published 35 journal articles and 20 book chapters and written over 50 other working papers in the areas of Macroeconomics, growth and finance, tax reform, International trade & Tariffs, International relations, and national security strategy.

Prof. Simon Johnson

Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is head of the Global Economics and Management group. At MIT, he is also co-director of the Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and a Research Affiliate at Blueprint Labs.

In 2024, Johnson received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, joint with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”

In 2007-08, Johnson was chief economist and director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. He currently co-chairs the CFA Institute Systemic Risk Council with Erkki Liikanen. In February 2021, Johnson joined the board of directors of Fannie Mae, where he is vice chair of the audit committee and a member of the risk and capital committee. He is a Research Associate at the NBER and a Fellow at CEPR.

Johnson was previously a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., a cofounder of BaselineScenario.com, a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisors, and a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee. From July 2014 to early 2017, Johnson was a member of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), within which he chaired the Global Vulnerabilities Working Group.

Johnson’s most recent book, with Daron Acemoglu, Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, explores the history and economics of major technological transformations up to and including the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence. Power and Progress is currently scheduled for publication in about 20 languages around the world. It was long listed for the 2023 Financial Times and Schroders Book of the Year and for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and it was shortlisted for the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize.

Prof. Dibyendu Maiti

Dr Dibyendu Maiti is a Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. He specialises in development macroeconomics and international economics, focusing on labour, technology, and the informal sector. Before this, he worked at the University of the South Pacific, Institute of Economic Growth Delhi, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta as well as held various research positions at the University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, Max Planck Institute of Economics (Jena), Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, University of Oslo. He received the Max-Planck India Fellowship, ICSSR-ESRC exchange and ICSSR-CASS exchange fellowship. He publishes research articles in reputed journals, like Journal of Development Economics, Social Research Indicators, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Labour Economics, Economic Modelling, International Review of Economics and Finance, Cambridge Journal of Economics, American Behavioural Scientists etc. Recently, he published a book named Digitalisation and Development – India and beyond. He is an associate editor of Progress in Development Studies (Sage). He received the IDRC Young India Social Sciences Award, 2010 and Global Development Network Award, 2009.