A joint presentation by the Social and Environment Thematic Group and Economics Thematic Group
Please join us for a presentation by Vinod Thomas, Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and former Director-General and Senior Vice-President of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank Group (2006-2011).
Vinod will discuss how economic analysis, which has been highly influential in raising the priority for investments in health, education and safety nets, has failed to do the same for the environment, biodiversity and climate change and what can be done about this failure.
As global warming spirals out of control endangering development, mainstream economics fails to integrate game changing negative externalities (like air and water pollution and ecological losses) in its (GDP) growth calculus.
While scientific analysis of the climate crisis is plentiful, there is an extraordinary knowledge-action gap. Economic analysis and advice are not connecting the dots to inform policy choices favoring low carbon scenarios with a sense of urgency. The most cited Quarterly Journal of Economics never published a climate article at the last count. Science journals for their part ignore the nascent econometric work on climate change, forgetting that while science explains the physical phenomenon, socio-economic and political considerations are the sources and solutions.
The World Bank can be uniquely influential in forging a paradigm shift in development pathways. That transformation would range from counting planetary losses to complement the single minded GDP focus to revising the Doing Business Index to view good regulations favorably. As the premier institution with a mandate to care for global public goods, the World Bank can vastly scale up highly productive green and climate investments, as some of the targets are beginning to signal.
Speaker Bio: Vinod Thomas is currently Visiting professor at National University of Singapore. Previously he was Director-General and Senior Vice-President of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank Group (2006-2011), and Director General of Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank (2011-2016).
Prior to being DG for evaluation, Vinod held several positions at the World Bank. He was Country Director for Brazil based in Brasilia from 2001 to 2005, during the Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He was Vice-President of the newly established World Bank Institute, which followed the previous Economic Development Institute. Having joined the World Bank in 1976, he was Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, Chief of Trade Policy and Principal Economist for Colombia, and Economist for Bangladesh. He was Director for the World Development Report 1991 on The Challenge of Development, working with Chief Economist Stan Fischer at the beginning and Larry Summers at the end.
Vinod has a PhD and MA in Economics from the University of Chicago and a BA from St. Stephen’s college, Delhi. He has authored 17 books, articles, and reports on macroeconomic, social, and environmental issues. His books include The Quality of Growth, 2000, Multilateral Banks and the Development Process, (with Xubei Luo), 2012, Climate Change and Natural Disasters, 2017, and (with Namrata Chindarkar) Economic Evaluation of Sustainable Development, 2019.
He has taught at Vassar College and the University of Sao Paulo, been on several Boards and has addressed numerous fora in all regions. He has been advisor for evaluation at Global Climate Fund, UN agencies, and at IFAD and contributed to Results for Development and the Emerging Market Forum. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow in Development Management at the Asian Institute of Management, Manila Philippines.
His current work at the National University of Singapore concerns climate change and sustainable development, including the mystifying and costly neglect of these game changers by mainstream economists.
Chair: Ede Ijjasz, co-chair, Social and Environment Thematic Group
Discussant: Norman Hicks, chair, Economics Thematic Group
RSVP Here
Join Webex Meeting
Meeting number: 2329 088 5694
Password: wwQ2JBXs
Join by phone
1-650-479-3207 Call-in number (US/Canada)
Access code: 2329 088 5694
