04/09/2014 - OECD Secretary-General, Angel Gurría  is pleased to announce the appointment of  Ms. Catherine L. Mann as the new OECD Chief Economist. Her appointment will reinforce the OECD’s commitment to identifying and promoting better policies for better lives around the world.  

Ms. Mann replaces Pier Carlo Padoan, who became Italy’s Minister of Economy and Finance in February 2014, and will take up her post in October. Her recruitment follows a very thorough process culminating in a highly competitive group of candidates who attended panel interviews and subsequent assessment centres. The calibre of the candidates was truly impressive and the Secretary-General extends his appreciation to OECD Ambassadors for their interest in this position. “Catherine is the right person at the right time to be our Chief Economist. Her expertise across policy fields is an asset to the OECD, given our increasing focus on multidimensionality, as well as the recognition of the trade- offs and synergies that exist among policies,” said Secretary-General Gurría. “Her appointment is particularly critical at a moment when our economies continue to suffer from the legacies of the crisis, and when we need to identify new sources of growth for the years to come.”

Ms. Mann, a US citizen, holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Harvard University, has a distinguished career in the public sector and academia. She is at present the Rosenberg Professor of Global Finance at Brandeis University and from 1997 to 2011 was a Senior Fellow and Visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Earlier in her career Ms. Mann served as a Senior International Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in the White House and worked as Special Assistant to the Vice President for Development Economics/Chief Economist at the World Bank.  She spent 13 years on the Federal Reserve Board as a Senior Economist and Assistant Director. Her written work includes: The Globalization of Venture Capital; Offshore Outsourcing and the Globalization of Services; External imbalance: costs and consequences of unsustainable trajectories; Supply Chain Logistics, Trade Facilitation, and International Trade.

Catherine L. Mann will be the second woman in the history of the OECD to hold the position of Chief Economist. Her arrival will strengthen the Economics Department, building on its long tradition of high-quality analysis and outputs, and adding to the already excellent team led by Alvaro Pereira and Christian Kastrop. The Economics Department brings together more than 160 staff members involved in the production of the OECD Economic Outlook, more than 40 country-based economic surveys, the Going for Growth report that benchmarks structural reforms in member and partner countries and a broad range of analysis and policy advice. Ms. Mann will also supervise the contributions of the Economics Department to the New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) initiative. She will also serve as OECD Representative at the Deputies’ meetings of the G20 Finance Track.

 

The Chief Economist reports directly to the Secretary-General and works in close co-operation with officials throughout the Organisation.