UNCDF has just launched its newest podcast, Capital Locast, where experts and thought leaders are invited to share their experiences, analysis and ideas on how to make the financial ecosystem work better for cities and local governments–particularly to achieve the Paris Agreement and the SDGs.
The inaugural guest is Dr. Raghuram Rajan – former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and currently the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Dr. Rajan’s research interests are in banking, corporate finance, and economic development, especially the role finance plays in it. Among his published books are The Third Pillar: How the State and Markets are leaving Communities Behind 2019, I do What I do: On Reform, Rhetoric, and Resolve, 2017, and Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, for which he was awarded the Financial Times-Goldman Sachs prize for best business book in 2010.
Dr. Rajan is a member of the Group of Thirty. He was the President of the American Finance Association in 2011 and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2003, the American Finance Association awarded Dr. Rajan the inaugural Fischer Black Prize for the best finance researcher under the age of 40. The other awards he has received include the Infosys prize for the Economic Sciences in 2012, the Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics in 2013, Euromoney Central Banker Governor of the Year 2014, and Banker Magazine (FT Group) Central Bank Governor of the Year 2016.
We talk to Professor Rajan about the crucial role of local governments in national development and how capital markets can open up to local government finance. We touch upon national markets and also the international financial architecture and how it can be made more friendly to local government finance.
Producers: Nan Zhang, Fernando Zarauz, Carlos Macias.
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Sources: UNCDF, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business
