The former leaders of three nations’ central banks and a former finance minister gathered last week for the launch event of an Israeli institute which aims to inform effective policies for a rapidly changing global economy.
The Jacob A. Frenkel and Mortimer B. Zuckerman Institute for Global Economics at Tel Aviv University (TAU) was officially inaugurated during a geopolitical economic symposium featuring Dr. Janet L. Yellen, former Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve System; Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Nigerian Minister of Finance and former Managing Director of the World Bank; Dr. Axel A. Weber, Chairman of the UBS Group and former President of Germany’s Deutsche Bundesbank; and the symposium’s moderator Prof. Jacob A. Frenkel, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International and former Governor of the Bank of Israel.
Hosted at TAU’s Coller School of Management, the symposium marked the Frenkel-Zuckerman Institute’s first annual conference convening academics, business leaders, and high-level government and industry representatives for the purpose of presenting major projects formulated by the nascent institute’s economic scientists and scholars.
“We are quite excited to launch the Frenkel-Zuckerman Institute for Global Economics,” said Eric J. Gertler, trustee of the Zuckerman Institute and Zuckerman Family Foundation, a founding supporter of the Frenkel-Zuckerman Institute. “First and foremost, we like to support talent and programs that can have a significant impact — and we feel that this institute at Tel Aviv University will no doubt have an outsized influence on global economic issues.”
Indeed, the Zuckerman Institute helped launch the new center at TAU with the objective of simultaneously strengthening the Israeli and global economies. The Institute will serve as an international center of excellence bringing together world leaders, scientists and scholars from different disciplines to advance the success of Israel in the global economy, and contribute towards improved economic policy-making within the global economic system.
“Our vision is for the institute to become a hub for developing sound economic policy and cutting-edge research on international finance, as well as on emerging issues such as the effects of technology on economic growth,” said James S. Gertler, Trustee of the Zuckerman Institute and the Zuckerman Family Foundation. “We believe that the institute will blaze a trail generating new ideas, analyses, and perspectives, and will help Israel and other nations navigate their economies toward prosperity and stability in an era where change is occurring at an ever-increasing rate.”
“We will try in this institute to bring the best — not only in theoretical studies, which are extremely important, but also in applicable studies to specify and articulate what it takes for the economy to be successful and prosperous,” said Prof. Frenkel, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute and Chairman of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University.
Leonardo Leiderman — the Jack and Lisa Yael Professor of Comparative Economics at TAU’s Eitan Berglas School of Economics as well as the Chief Economic Advisor of Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest commercial bank — is serving as the first Director of the Frenkel-Zuckerman Institute.