President Tharman Shanmugaratnam of the Republic of Singapore visited MIT on Tuesday, meeting campus leaders while receiving the Miriam Pozen Prize and delivering a lecture on fiscal policy at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 'We really have to re-orient fiscal policy and develop new fiscal compacts,' said Tharman in his remarks, referring to the budget policy challenges countries face at a time of expanding government debt. His talk, 'The Compacts We Need: Fiscal Choices and Risk-sharing for Sustained Prosperity,' was delivered before a capacity audience of students, faculty, administrators, and staff at MIT's Samberg Center. Tharman is a trained economist who for many years ran Singapore's central bank and has become a notable presence in global policymaking circles. Presenting a crisp summary of global trends, he observed that debt levels in major economies are at or beyond levels once regarded as unsustainable. 'There is no realistic solution to putting government debts back...
learn more
