Dear Friends,
I hope that your year is off to a good start. Like every other year that ever was, this one is full of challenges of each of us, for our country (which ever one it is) and for our world. I think that for most economies the prospects for recovery and growth are somewhat better than they were at this time last year. But for the United State and some other European countries serious public debt problems must be address sooner rather than later (actually, we are already now living in “later”).
My coming months will be largely taken up with the continuation of the work I was doing with the International Monetary Fund in Afghanistan and with Deloitte/USAID in Southern Sudan this past year. I expect to return to Kabul in a few weeks and, if all goes well with the independence referendum in Sudan starting this Sunday I will return there soon as well. For those of you interested, several articles in the Washington Post yesterday and today provide a good summary of what is going on in Sudan: “Sudan on the brink” “Sudan votes comes together after rocky Obama effort to prevent violence” Southern Sudan makes “final walk to freedom”
My role in Southern Sudan is to help them set up a new central bank and to issue a new currency and to keeps is value stable. It promises to be an active and interesting year.
My best wishes to you,
Warren
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Author: Warren Coats
I specialize in advising central banks on monetary policy and the development of the capacity to formulate and implement monetary policy. I joined the International Monetary Fund in 1975 from which I retired in 2003 as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Financial Systems Department. While at the IMF I led or participated in missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe) and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank's World Development Report team in 1989. After retirement from the IMF I was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10 and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017. Prior to joining the IMF I was Assistant Prof of Economics at UVa from 1970-75. I am currently a fellow of Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. In March 2019 Central Banking Journal awarded me for my “Outstanding Contribution for Capacity Building.” My recent books are One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; My Travels in the Former Soviet Union; My Travels to Afghanistan; My Travels to Jerusalem; and My Travels to Baghdad. I have a BA in Economics from the UC Berkeley and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. My dissertation committee was chaired by Milton Friedman and included Robert J. Gordon.
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