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Meet New Faculty: Jan Svejnar
Each year, SIPA looks forward to welcoming new faculty members. We asked the newest additions to our full-time faculty for 2012-13 and a select few adjunct professors to respond to a questionnaire about their interests and experience. We’ll be sharing their responses on this website at regular intervals between now and August 31, allowing the SIPA community to “meet” them before classes begin September 4. See all›
Jan Svejnar
James T. Shotwell Professor of Global Political Economy; Director, Center for Global Economic Governance
Jan Svejnar camed to SIPA in early 2012 to serve as the founding director of the Center for Global Economic Governance (CGEG). From 2005 to 2011 he directed the International Policy Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Svejnar is also a founder and the chairman of CERGE-EI in Prague, an American-style PhD program to educate scholars to serve nations in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Full biography›
What he studies:
The effects of government policies on firms, labor, and capital markets; corporate and national governance and performance; and entrepreneurship.
Svejnar on globalization:
Globalization has brought about major benefits as well as serious problems. Liberalization and integration of previously semi-autarkic economies into the global economic system have created beneficial economies of scale, spurred innovation and lifted tens of millions of people out of abject poverty. Yet, the global economy has also become less stable as uncertainty has increased and new powerful states have come on the scene, global private actors have grown in importance and flows of goods, capital and labor have increased.
The global economy has also become less equitable and sustainable as income and wealth distributions have widened and issues such as climate change, trade policies and design of international institutions have gained in importance. The 2008 financial crisis, with its long-term economic repercussions, has increased the recognition that without adequate global economic governance there is a greater possibility of major crises and tendency toward protectionism and political upheavals. There is hence a clear need for new theories, empirical studies and policy initiatives that cut across nation-state boundaries and address the new reality.
Svejnar on the philosophy behind the Center for Global Economic Governance:
The creation of CGEG recognizes the fact that there is a growing awareness of these issues but also a lack of agreement on how to tackle them. This provides a unique opportunity for CGEG – a center that generates pioneering ideas and disseminates them effectively in the policy arena will make an important economic and social contribution. The goal for CGEG is hence to become a premier Center for producing a new wave of policy-oriented research on global economic governance, stress excellence and recognition, and achieve visibility and impact. In doing so, CGEG will bring into sharp focus key issues, set the highest academic standards in research, and bring together key players from the academic, policy and business world.
Svejnar on CGEG activities:
The proposed approach is to combine internal and external talent. In particular, CGEG will involve and provide stimulating environment for SIPA (Columbia) faculty and students, and bring in top external academics, policy makers, and business leaders. The Center will organize visible events, think out-of-the-box in design and implementation, and use success to generate its future endowment....
Other projects and events will be added as we proceed. The various activities will result in policy briefs, discussion papers, media materials, books, and conference volumes.
Visit the Center for Global Economic Governance ›
- August 30, 2012