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wiiw Seminar Series
'Crisis Management in Central, East and Southeast Europe: What is
to be done?' |
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Valentin
Lazea, Chief Economist of the National Bank of Romania.
Politics versus Economics: the Case of Romania
18 November 2009, 1 p.m. |
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We discuss,
among other aspects, the following questions: what explains
the very good economic performance of Romania during the period
2000-2006?; what went wrong in 2007-2008?; economic performance
in 2009: could Romania have done better?; is euro adoption an
anchor for future policies?
Valentin Lazea graduated from the Management Faculty of the
Academy of Economic Studies in 1982. Later he attended a one-year
post-graduate course in economics at Sussex University, Brighton,
as well as courses in banking (Milan) and in financial programming
(Washington DC). Mr.Lazea joined the National Bank of Romania
in 1993, initially as an economist, later becoming head of the
monetary policy division. Between 1996 and 2000, he served as
a Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) at the Ministry of Finance.
Some of his major achievements in this capacity include the
modernization of the informatic system of the Ministry of Finance,
overseeing of the introduction of the Global Income Tax, the
successful repositioning of Romania on the Eurobond market in
2000, after three years of absence, etc. For all these achievements,
Mr. Lazea has been awarded by the President of Romania the Order
'For Merit'. Since 2001, he is Chief Economist of the National
Bank of Romania. In this capacity, he participates in the formulating
of the monetary policy decisions, and in macroeconomic coordination
with the Ministry of Finance. Besides his current job, Mr. Lazea
is a founding member of the Romanian Center for Economic Policies
(CEROPE), being involved in many research projects, and president
of the board of TRANSFOND, a company that performs electronic
payments for Romanian banks. In this latter capacity, Mr. Lazea
has presided over the transformation of the Romanian payment
system from paper-based to an electronic one. |
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