Public debt management can be a very technical and specialized realm of public finances, and it should encompass all the financial obligations under the control of the central government to ensure that the government’s financial needs and payment obligations are met at the lowest possible risk. However, the post-pandemic economy has posed critical challenges for debt management strategies due to the need to reduce debt gradually enough to preserve the recovery from COVID-19. How has Latin America changed those debt management strategies to ensure that outcome?
In this talk, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, dean of the School of Government at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, presented his essay analyzing the complexity of debt management strategies in Latin American economies with limited local savings and narrow domestic markets. Following the presentation, Maria del Carmen Bonilla Rodriguez, deputy undersecretary for Public Credit at the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico, and Nancy Zimmerman, co-founder and managing partner of Bracebridge Capital, provided analysis. Georgetown Americas Institute director Alejandro Werner introduced and moderate the panel.
Featuring
Eduardo Levy Yeyati is dean of the School of Government at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires and the founder and faculty director of its Center for Evidence-based Policy (CEPE-Di Tella). He is also lead researcher at Argentina´s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and founding partner of Elypsis, an economic research firm in Argentina. Prior to that, he was senior adviser to the Office of the Chief of Staff in Argentina (where he led the program Argentina 2030), director at the Bank of Investment and Trade Credit in 2016, head of Latin American Research and Emerging Markets Strategy at Barclays Capital from 2007 to 2010, financial sector adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank from 2006 to 2007, and chief economist of the Central Bank of Argentina in 2002. He was also honorary president of the National Council of Production and CIPPEC, an Argentine think tank. His research focuses on banking, emerging markets finance, monetary and exchange rate policy, international financial architecture, and growth in developing economies. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Maria del Carmen Bonilla Rodríguez is deputy undersecretary for Public Credit and is in charge of the International Affairs Unit in the Mexican Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. Within the Ministry, she has also served as general director of Debt Issuance, where she managed the Federal Government's public debt portfolio and executed the annual financing plan for the domestic and foreign markets. María del Carmen has more than 16 years of experience in the financial sector. During her tenure as investment coordinator at the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), she obtained 280,000 million pesos in Managed Assets. In the private sector, she worked as a derivatives operator for 11 years in diverse international banks such as HSBC and Santander. She has a bachelor's degree in Corporate Finance and Banking from the Faculty of Actuaries of the Universidad Anáhuac del Sur. She is currently certified by the Mexican Securities Industry Association (AMIB) and is a member of theInternational Society of Female Professionals (ISFP).
Nancy Zimmerman is co-founder and managing partner of Bracebridge Capital, which has over $12 billion under management and is a pioneer in the field of absolute return investing. Before founding Bracebridge, Zimmerman managed the interest rate option group on a worldwide basis for Goldman Sachs. She began her career at O'Connor & Associates. Zimmerman earned bachelor's degrees in economics and the practice and production of art from Brown University; she received the Alfred H. Joslin Award for Service to the Brown Community at her graduation in 1985. Zimmerman was elected to the Board of Fellows of the Brown University Corporation in 2021, following previous terms on the Board of Trustees. She also serves as the inaugural chair of the President’s Advisory Council for Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science. In 2020 she helped fund and promote cutting-edge research on COVID-19. Zimmerman is also a member of the Board of Directors of Social Finance US, a nonprofit that addresses complex social challenges through innovative public-private partnerships, such as social impact bonds and pay-for-success financing.
Alejandro Werner (introductions and moderator) 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 rose to undersecretary in Mexico’s Finance Ministry and taught at leading universities in Mexico, Spain, and the United States. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.