The National Treasury is hosting the leader of the International Growth Advisory Panel Professor Ricardo Hausmann, the ex-Finance Minister of Chile Professor Andres Velasco (both from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) and Professor Roberto Rigobon (MIT) in South Africa this week. The team will be meeting with a number of key representatives of the public and private sector, the academic sector, and labour.
The visit will include a public lecture on Thursday, 24 June 2010, at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). Ricardo Hausmann will deliver a lecture on growth lessons after the financial crisis, and Andres Velasco will focus on the lessons learnt from fiscal policy in Chile, including the imposition of the Tobin Tax.
Ricardo Hausmann is a former Venezuelan Minister of Planning and Head of the "Presidential Office of Coordination and Planning" (1992-1993). He is the current Director of Harvard's Center for International Development and a Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Professor Hausmann also led the International Growth Advisory Panel which was set up in 2006 to examine constraints to growth in the South African economy.
Roberto Rigobon is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management and Professor of Applied Economics. His areas of research are international economics, monetary economics, and development economics. Professor Rigobon also served on the International Growth Advisory Panel along with Professor Hausmann.