Erik Berglöf
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Erik_Bergl%C3%B6f_Official_EBRD_Portrait_2013.jpg/220px-Erik_Bergl%C3%B6f_Official_EBRD_Portrait_2013.jpg)
Director of the LSE Institute of Global Affairs
Erik Berglöf (born 1957) is a Swedish economist, currently the Chief Economist of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Beijing-based multilateral development bank established in 2016 with a mission to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia. In March 2019 Erik Berglöf was appointed to the European Council's High Level Group of Wise Persons on the European financial architecture for development where Berglöf and eight other economists will suggest changes to the EU's development finance structure. In 2017–2018 Erik Berglöf served on the secretariat of the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance and on the Governing Board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking in New York.
Currently, Erik Berglöf is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Board Member and Research Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels, and Executive Board Member of the New Economic School in Moscow, research fellow and former programme director at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, Trustee of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation Archived 2020-08-15 at the Wayback Machine and Women for Women International.[1]
From 2015 to 2020 Erik Berglöf served as the inaugural Director of the London School of Economics' (LSE) Institute of Global Affairs (IGA).
From 2006 to 2015 Erik Berglöf was the Chief Economist and special adviser to the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,[2] the London-based multilateral development bank established in 1991 to lead the economic transformation of the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, including the CIS nations.
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
[edit]Erik Berglöf became the inaugural Chief Economist of the AIIB on 1 September 2020.
London School of Economics (LSE)
[edit]Professor Erik Berglöf became the inaugural Director of the LSE's Institute of Global Affairs (IGA) on 1 February 2015.
As Director of IGA, Berglöf launched the LSE Global Policy Lab engaging advanced and emerging economies on research-based policy design and implementation.
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
[edit]As chief economist, Berglöf was on the bank's executive committee,[3] Operations Committee, and Strategy and Policy Committee.[4]
Vienna Initiative and T2T
[edit]Since joining the EBRD in 2006, Berglöf has been credited with creating the "Vienna Initiative", a crisis coordination response involving private banks, the IMF, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Commission, shown to have mitigated the impact of the global financial crisis in Europe.[5][6][7][8] Its sequel Vienna Initiative 2.0[9] focuses on managing the impact of the adjustment of the European banking system in the wake of the crisis.[10] As part of the Vienna Initiative 2.0, Berglöf chaired a working group on the banking union[11] with representatives from the international financial institutions, the European Commission, ECB, national regulators and supervisors, and a number of private banks.[12][13][14][15]
Berglöf launched "Transition to Transition" (T2T), designed to promote peer-to-peer exchange of transition and reform experience between senior policymakers and sector experts in EBRD's current countries of operations and countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean region.[16][17] Together with Forward Thinking, a think tank promoting understanding between wider Muslim grassroots communities and European policymakers, he also initiated a series of multi-party meetings on private sector development with political leaders from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
European Union reform
[edit]Berglöf has also been involved in policymaking and broader reform efforts around the Euro-crisis as a member of the INET Council on the Eurozone Crisis.[18][19] In addition, he is involved in global financial reform efforts as a member of the Global Agenda Council[20] on Systemic Financial Risk and the steering group of The Role of Financial Services in Society,[21] both under the World Economic Forum.[22] He has contributed a number of publications on European Reform, including "BUILT TO LAST: A Political Architecture for Europe".[23] In Sweden he has also served on a number of government commissions devoted to regulation and supervision of the financial sector, including the commission investigating the Swedish Financial Crisis and the Financial Markets Commission.[24][25]
Corporate governance
[edit]Corporate governance has been a particular interest of Berglöf's. He has contributed to academic literature in the comparative study of corporate governance, as well as participated in various policy initiatives, including as a former co-director of the Global Corporate Governance Forum[26][27] and current board member and research fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute.[28] In Sweden he was an expert on the government Commission of Ownership and Control (Ägarutredningen)[29] and was invited to participate in the council created to assess the implementation of the Swedish corporate governance code.
Development and emerging markets
[edit]Berglöf is involved in broader development issues with a particular emphasis on emerging markets.[30] He is a member of the Council of Chief Economists of the international financial institutions and has initiated collaboration with, among others, the MIT Poverty Lab and the Institute of Fiscal Studies on randomized field experiments and micro surveys, including initiating the Life in Transition Survey,[31] a combined household and attitudinal survey implemented in 45 countries. He is a member of the governing board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking[32] and has been a member of the Swedish Development Minister's Expert Group on Development Issues[33] and the Swedish Foreign Minister's Strategic Advisory Board and EU Policy Advisory Board.
Academic career
[edit]Stockholm School of Economics and SITE
[edit]Berglöf was a professor at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1996 to 2006. During his time at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) he built it into a leading international research institution [34] and helped establish several other think tanks in the emerging world: Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, Kiev Economics Institute, WISER (now CenEA), and Center for China in the World Economy (CCWE), research-based think tanks in Riga, Kiev, Warsaw (now Szczecin), and Beijing, respectively.[35] In 2005, Berglöf co-founded with the Brookings Institution, The Global Institute,[36] an alliance of research-based think tanks in emerging markets with the aim of strengthening evidence-based policymaking in emerging markets.
Russia
[edit]In 2000, Berglöf founded the Centre for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) in Moscow, recruiting the first PhDs in economics back to Russia to involve them in the policy process. By mid-2000s, CEFIR was ranked the best economics think tank in Russia and 25th in the world,.[37] Eventually, it has merged into the New Economic School, the leading graduate program in economics in Russia and the top economics department in the post-Communist world.[38] Currently, Berglöf continue to be in the NES International Advisory Board and serves on NES board of directors.[39] In 2013, Berglöf was awarded the Leontief Medal for his contributions to economic reform in Russia.[40][41]
Other academic posts
[edit]Previous academic posts include visiting positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Fulbright Scholar, Harvard Law School (John M. Olin Scholar), and Stanford University where he was also a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. From 1992 to 1996, he was an assistant professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he was involved with the early building of European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (Ecares), a research-based European think tank in economics.[42]
He has been a member of the governing councils of the European Economic Association (EEA) and the Royal Economic Society. He is currently the treasurer of the International Economic Association (IEA).
Publications
[edit]Berglöf is published authority on financial contracting, corporate governance, economic transition, financial development and EU reform.[43] He has published academic articles in, among others, American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics and European Economic Review. His publications include: The Economics of Transition (Palgrave MacMillan),[44] The New Political Economy of Russia (MIT Press)[45] and Built to Last: A Political Architecture for Europe (CEPR).[46]
Early years
[edit]Erik Berglöf was born in Stockholm as the eldest of six children and grew up in Lund, Malmö and Östersund, Sweden. Early in his career, Berglöf held local political office: at 18 he was the youngest member elected to the city council of the Östersund Municipality and the County Council of Jämtland county. He did his military service at the Army Interpretation School where he studied Russian and East Bloc studies at Uppsala University and later was a special adviser on economic policy and physical planning in the Prime Minister's Office of Sweden. He has an MA and a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Personal
[edit]Since 1989, Erik Berglöf has been married to Annie Maccoby Berglöf. Together they have two daughters, Alexandra and Katarina.
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References
[edit]- ^ "Erik Berglof | Women for Women International". womenforwomen.org. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
- ^ "Erik Berglof Biography". ebrd.com. Archived from the original on 26 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "EBRD Executive Committee". ebrd.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "EBRD Chief Economist – About". Archived from the original on 2013-11-25. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
- ^ Andersen, Camilla. "Interview with Erik Berglof about the European Bank Coordination Initiative". IMF Survey Online.
- ^ Economist. "Fingered by fate". Economist.
- ^ Pistor, Katharina (21 March 2011). "Governing Interdependent Financial Systems: Lessons from the Vienna Initiative" (PDF). The Center for Law and Economic Studies, Columbia University School of Law. Working Paper (396).
- ^ Cetorelli, Nicola; Linda S. Goldberg (28 September 2010). "Global Banks and International Shock Transmission: Evidence from the Crisis" (PDF). IMF Economic Review.
- ^ "Vienna Initiative 2.0". vienna-initiative.com. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ Berglöf, Erik (9 May 2013). "Rebooted Vienna recognises need for change". Financial Times.
- ^ "Working Group on the European Banking Union and Emerging Europe" (PDF).
- ^ De Haas, Ralph; Yevgeniya Korniyenko; Elena Loukoianova; Alexander Pivovarsky (March 2012). "Foreign banks and the Vienna Initiative: turning sinners into saints" (PDF). EBRD Working Paper. 143.
- ^ Klingen, Christoph; Fabio Mucci; Izlem Erdem; Gunter Deuber; Stefan Kavan; Marten Ross (January 2013). "Banking in Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey: Challenges and Opportunities" (PDF). European Investment Bank.
- ^ "Five priorities for the Vienna Initiative were agreed- EBRD". Balkans.com Business News. 2014-01-17.
- ^ Cohn, Carolyn (13 January 2014). "EBRD eyeing bigger role in 'orphaned' central European banks". Reuters.
- ^ "Transition to Transition (T2T) Initiative: "Stimulating Growth and Investment During Transition"" (PDF). EBRD.
- ^ "Economic conference kicks off at Dead Sea". Petra Jordan News Agency. 2012-05-28.
- ^ "Council on the Euro Zone Crisis". ineteconomics.org. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "INET Erik Berglof profile". Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
- ^ "Global Agenda Councils". weforum.org. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "The Role of Financial Services in Society: A Multistakeholder Compact". World Economic Forum.
- ^ "World Economic Forum Erik Berglöf Profile".
- ^ "CEPR Reports and Books". Archived from the original on 2003-05-22. Retrieved 2014-05-01., additional text.
- ^ "The Future of the Finance Sector". Ministry of Finance, Sweden. 2000.
- ^ "Finansmarknadsutredningen (Fi 1997:14)". Swedish Government.
- ^ "Global Corporate Governance Forum – Global Partners and Regional Affiliates". IFC. Archived from the original on 2014-02-26. Retrieved 2014-01-30.
- ^ Berglöf, Erik; Stijn Claessens (2005). "Enforcement and Corporate Governance: Three Views" (PDF). Global Corporate Governance Forum Focus 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-01-30.
- ^ "ECGI Erik Berglof Profile". ECGI.
- ^ Sverige Agarutredningen (1988). Ägande och inflytande i svenskt näringsliv : huvudbetänkande. Stockholm : Allmänna förlaget : Industridepartementet.
- ^ "Erik Berglof calls for 'new momentum' on reforms". EBRD. Archived from the original on 2014-06-15.
- ^ "Life in Transition Survey II". EBRD and World Bank Survey. 2. 29 June 2011. Archived from the original on 8 November 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ^ "INET – About the Institute". ineteconomics.org. Archived from the original on 1 July 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "Expertgrupp för studier av utvecklingsfrågor (UD 1995:E) Organ inom regeringskansliet". riksdagen.se.
- ^ "SITE's History". Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
- ^ "SITE's History". hhs.se. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "The Global Institute The Global Institute". brookings.edu. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "Top 25% Think Tanks, as of December 2013".
- ^ "New Economic School". Masterstudies.com.
- ^ "NES Governance". New Economic School.
- ^ "Berglöf belönas med". Archived from the original on 2014-04-14. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
- ^ "Erik Berglöf wins Russian award".
- ^ "Erik Berglöf participated in the World Leader's Forum panel, Where Is Russia Headed?, in April 2007". Columbia University World Leaders Forum.
- ^ "List of Publications". EBRD. Archived from the original on 2013-11-22. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
- ^ "The Economics of Transition". us.macmillan.com. Macmillan. Archived from the original on 15 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "The New Political Economy of Russia". mitpress.mit/edu. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
- ^ "MEI 12 Built to Last: A Political Architecture for Europe". cepr.org. Retrieved 16 June 2014.