New research by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) explores the vicious cycle between crime and low economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. Increased insecurity leads to macroeconomic instability, which in turn leads to more crime. How can the economic and social costs of insecurity be measured? What can be done to break this cycle, reduce violence in the region, and spur economic growth? What opportunities lie ahead for regional cooperation in combating transnational crime? The Georgetown Americas Institute was pleased to host Rodrigo Valdes (IMF) for a discussion on the IMF report “Breaking Latin America’s Cycle of Low Growth and Violence” (2024) with discussants Joyce Wong of the Inter-American Development Bank and GAI Founding Director Alejandro Werner.
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Rodrigo Valdes, a national of Chile, has been the director of the Western Hemisphere department (WHD) at the International Monetary Fund since May 2023. Prior to this, Valdes was a professor of economics in the School of Government at the Catholic University of Chile. He also held the position of Chile's minister of finance from 2015 to 2017. He spent several years in Chile's public sector serving in various leading positions both at the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, where he was director of research and chief economist responsible for producing the bank's Monetary Policy Report and overseeing macroeconomic analysis. In previous IMF roles he served as a deputy director of the European and Western Hemisphere departments. Valdes also has had experience in the banking sector. At BTG Pactual, he headed the macroeconomic research team for Latin America excluding Brazil, and he was board and executive committee president at Banco Estado, Chile's sole state-owned bank. He also worked at Barclays Capital in New York as director and chief economist for Latin America. Valdes holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Chile. He has several publications on macroeconomics and international finance.
Alejandro Werner is the founding director of the Georgetown Americas Institute and a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that appointment, he was undersecretary of finance and public credit in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and held several positions in that ministry and the Central Bank. He also taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in economics from ITAM.
Joyce Wong is a senior advisor for communications at the Inter-American Development Bank. She previously served as mission chief to Honduras, Yemen, and Djibouti at the International Monetary Fund and worked as a desk economist on Argentina, Jamaica, and several Central American countries. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics and a BA in Economics and Mathematics from New York University.