After the U.S. Elections: What Role for Economic Policy at Home and Abroad?

As part of the AGI series of webinars on the consequences of the November 3 vote for German-American relations, this event will examine the domestic and foreign economic policies that the Biden administration is likely to pursue to improve U.S. prosperity and how they will impact U.S. relations with Germany and Europe.

Tom Duesterberg is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. An expert of trade, manufacturing, economics, and foreign policy, Dr. Duesterberg leads project work on trade with Europe and China, reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO), global competition in advanced technologies such as 5G, and the strength of the U.S. manufacturing sector. Previously, Dr. Duesterberg was executive director of the Manufacturing and Society in the 21st Century Program at the Aspen Institute. From 1999 to 2011 he served as president and CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an economic research and executive education organization based in Virginia. He was also director of the Washington office of Hudson Institute, assistant secretary for international economic policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce, chief of staff to Rep. Chris Cox and Sen. Dan Quayle, and associate instructor at Stanford University. He co-wrote U.S. Manufacturing: The Engine of Growth in a Global Economy and three other books, and is the author of over 200 articles in journals and major newspapers. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Manufacturing Public Policy Initiative at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the Board of Trustees of the American University of Rome. He is a graduate of Princeton University (B.A.) and Indiana University (M.A., Ph.D.).

Eugene Ludwig is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Promontory Financial Group, LLC. Before founding Promontory, Gene was Vice Chairman and Senior Control Officer of Bankers Trust New York Corp. He was instrumental in steering the firm through its landmark merger with Deutsche Bank. As U.S. Comptroller of the Currency from 1993 to 1998, Gene served as the Clinton Administration’s point person on the policy response to the credit crunch of the early 1990s. While he was Comptroller, Gene served as Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), a member of the Basel Committee on International Bank Supervision, a Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Chairman of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. Before becoming Comptroller, Gene was a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling, specializing in banking law. In addition to his role at Promontory Financial Group, Gene is Chairman and Co-Founder of Promontory Interfinancial Network and Managing Principal of CapGen Financial, a private equity firm. Gene was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in York, Pennsylvania. He graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College and received a scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a M.A. as a Keasbey Fellow. He holds a J.D. from Yale University, where he was editor of the Yale Law Journal and chairman of Yale Legislative Services.

Stefan Mair is Director of German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). Dr. Stefan Mair studied Political Sciences, Economics and Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. From 1989 to 1991 he held a scholarship from the ifo-Institute for Economic Research. He was subsequently awarded his doctorate in Political Sciences by the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. In the following years he worked as an advisor on Africa at the Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP), becoming head of the research group Africa and Middle East at the SWP in 1997. From 2002 to 2010 he was a member of the management of the SWP and from 2007 to 2009 he also held the post of director of research. In 2010 Dr. Stefan Mair moved from the SWP to the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Since November 2010 he has been a member of the Executive Board of the BDI.

Adam Posen has been president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics since January 2013. Over his career, he has contributed to research and public policy regarding monetary and fiscal policies in the G-20, the challenges of European integration since the adoption of the euro, China-US economic relations, and developing new approaches to financial recovery and stability. In September 2009, Posen was appointed by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer to serve a three-year term as an external voting member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He also consulted for the UK Cabinet Office for the successful London G-20 summit of 2009 during the global financial crisis. He was made an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2014 for his services to British economic policy. He served seven terms as a member of the Panel of Economic Advisers to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office from 2005 to 2019. Posen received his BA and PhD from Harvard University.

Peter S. Rashish (moderator) is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Geoeconomics Program at AGI. He also writes The Wider Atlantic blog. Mr. Rashish has served as Vice President for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he spearheaded the Chamber’s advocacy for an ambitious and comprehensive trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, later officially launched as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Previously, Mr. Rashish was a Senior Advisor for Europe at McLarty Associates, and has held positions as Executive Vice President of the European Institute, on the Paris-based staff of the International Energy Agency, and as a consultant to the World Bank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Mr. Rashish has testified on the euro zone and U.S.-European economic relations before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia and has advised two U.S. presidential campaigns. He has been a member of the faculty at the Salzburg Global Seminar and a speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival. His commentaries have been published in The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, and Foreign Policy and he has appeared on PBS, CNBC, CNN, and NPR. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College and an M.Phil. in international relations from Oxford University. He speaks French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

This webinar will convene via Zoom. Contact Ms. Elizabeth Caruth at ecaruth@aicgs.org with any questions.

---