Tools for the Next Global Recession
Annual David Laidler Luncheon with Dawn Desjardins, William White, and Mark Zelmer
With slowing economic growth and a great deal of geopolitical uncertainty, there is growing concern of an impending global recession. With policy rates low, the question becomes what measures will central bankers and policymakers be forced to take to stabilize our financial system and the economy at large. The C.D. Howe Institute invites you to join us on December 10 to hear a panel of experts discuss policy tools in the event of a recession.
The C.D. Howe Institute is deeply honoured to host the Annual David Laidler Luncheon to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of Professor Laidler in the field of monetary policy.
Dawn Desjardin, Deputy Chief Economist, Royal Bank of Canada
William White, Senior Fellow, C.D. Howe Institute; Former Chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Mark Zelmer, Senior Fellow, C.D. Howe Institute; Former Deputy Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions
Panelist Biographies
Dawn Desjardins, Deputy Chief Economist, Royal Bank of Canada
Dawn Desjardins joined the RBC Economics team in January 2006. She is a key contributor to the macroeconomic forecasts for Canada and the U.S. and is part of a team that is responsible for the interest rate forecasts for both countries. Dawn delivers economic analysis to RBC’s clients through a variety of publications and presentations. She is often interviewed by media from across North America to discuss developments in the economy and financial markets.
Prior to joining RBC, Dawn worked as a reporter for Bloomberg Financial News in Toronto covering the Canadian bond and currency markets and was the Canadian bond market strategist for a major U.S. bank for ten years. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto.
William White, Senior Fellow, C.D. Howe Institute; Former Chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
William (Bill) White is currently a Senior Fellow at the C. D. Howe Institute, a research institution in Toronto, Canada. He was the Chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee of the OECD in Paris from 2009 until March of 2018. He was also a member of the Issing Committee (2008-2012), advising the German Chancellor on G20 issues, and sits on the Advisory Board of INET, the Cato Institute (Washington) and the Council on Economic Policies (Zurich). Mr. White’s research interests focus on issues pertaining to monetary and financial stability.
Mr White was the recipient of the Adam Smith Award for 2016, the highest award of the US National Association of Business Economists. It is presented annually to an individual “displaying leadership in the economics profession and in the application of economic principles and knowledge in the workplace and policy arenas”. In 2015 he was presented with the Hans-Möller-Medal by the VAC Alumni Club of the Ludwig Maximilian’s University of Munich (Germany) for his “outstanding contributions to the field of economics”. In 2014 the Monetary Workshop (Germany), in association with the German Economic Association, awarded him its Prize in Monetary, Financial and Macro-Prudential Policy for “outstanding achievements in practically-orientated research”.
He was appointed to the position of Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department (MED) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel in May 1995. As Economic Adviser, he oversaw the preparation of the BIS Annual Report and is now widely credited with being one of the few who foresaw the economic and financial difficulties which emerged in 2007. As Head of the MED, he had overall responsibility for the department's output of research, data and information services, and the organization of meetings for central bank Governors and staff around the world. He retired from the BIS on 30 June, 2008.
Mr. White began his professional career at the Bank of England, where he was an economist from 1969 to 1972. Subsequently, he spent 22 years with the Bank of Canada, being appointed to the position of Deputy Governor (International) in September 1988.
Born in Kenora, Ontario, Canada, he received his B A (Hons) from the University of Windsor and his Ph D from the University of Manchester (UK) in 1969. His studies in the UK were supported by a Commonwealth scholarship.
Mark Zelmer, Senior Fellow, C.D. Howe Institute; Former Deputy Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions
Mark Zelmer has more than 30 years experience dealing with financial sector policy and regulatory issues having worked for the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canada (OSFI); the Bank of Canada; and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He served first as an Assistant Superintendent and then as Deputy Superintendent of Financial Institutions at OSFI from December 2011 until June 2016. Prior to that he spent more than 20 years with Bank of Canada serving in progressively more senior positions, including as the first leader of its Financial Stability Department from September 2008 until November 2011. He also spent almost four years with the IMF from January 2000 until November 2003 where he served first as senior economist and then as Deputy Division Chief in what is now its Monetary and Capital Markets Department.
Mark also has been an active contributor to the global regulatory reform agenda in the wake of the financial crisis. As a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from September 2008 through June 2016 he chaired the development of several components of the Basel III framework and led a peer review assessment of the European Union's adoption of Basel III capital requirements. He also served on the Financial Stability Board's Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation from July 2014 to June 2016 and co-chaired its work on structural vulnerabilities associated with the global asset management industry.
Mark has also been busy since retiring from OSFI. He currently sits on the Boards of Directors of Assuris and State Street Trust Company of Canada and has helped the International Monetary Fund with its recent assessments of the Japan and US financial sector. In response to a request from the UK government he also conducted an independent review of the prudential supervision of a medium-sized UK bank (Co-Op Bank plc) that nearly failed in 2013.
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