Panel Discussion I "Rising public debts: Historical and academic perspective" will seek answers to questions such as the impact of public debt on income levels, effectiveness of fiscal expansion and the sustainability of debt levels in Europe. Luis A. V. Catão, Senior Economist of the International Monetary Fund and Joint Vienna Institute, Thomas Grennes, Professor of Economics of North Carolina State University, Lucrezia Reichlin, Professor of London Business School, and Kenichi Ueda, Professor of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tokyo will participate in the discussion.
The discussion will be moderated by John O'Donnell, journalist of Reuters News.
Panel Discussion "What challenges do high public debts pose to the monetary policy?" will focus on the compatibility of a single monetary policy with decentralised fiscal policies, the impact of high public debt on the monetary policy transmission mechanism and crisis responses of fiscal and monetary policies and their mutual inter-dependence. Ivan Mikloš, Member of Parliament of the Slovak Republic, former Minister of Finance, Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, Governor of Latvijas Banka, and Tuomas Saarenheimo, Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Finance of Finland will contribute to the above discussion.
Niels H. Bünemann, Finance Commentator and Correspondent of TV2 Danmark, will be the moderator of the discussion.
For the event programme, see https://www.macroeconomics.lv/conference-quo-vadis-europe-how-achieve-growth-high-debt-environment.
Venue of the conference: National Library of Latvia, Mūkusalas iela 3, Riga. The conference begins at 9.00. Participation by invitation (media participation – please contact the Press Office of Latvijas Banka by phone +371 67022594 or email: pressofice@bank.lv by 5 pm on 26 October 2015).
Live webcast of the conference will available on Latvijas Banka's macroeconomic analysis website https://www.macroeconomics.lv/.