May 20, 2021

Barbara Kolm: Madame, president of the European Central Bank, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, excellencies, dear Governor Holtzmann, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. My name is Barbara Kolm, and I'm the Vice President of the Oesterreichische National Bank, Austria's central bank, which is a member in the euro system. Today, I have the immense pleasure of welcoming you to the first Joint SUERF/JVI/OeNB Vienna Economic Dialogue. I would like to thank you all for joining us, and I would like to extend my particularly heartfelt welcome to our distinguished speakers and panelists from around the world who have so generously agreed to join us and contribute to this conference. It is truly your participation which turns this event into a truly international dialogue of the highest caliber.

This year's conference on Gender, Money, and Finance deals with a topic that is both close to my heart and very timely. The European Commission's 2021 report on gender equality in the EU, which was published earlier this year, draws a clear conclusion. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have proven to be a setback for many dimensions of gender equality in our private and professional lives. Unfortunately, and I have to say, predictably, mimicking observed patterns during previous crises, gender-based violence is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere. In addition, the economic fallout of the pandemic has disproportionally hit sectors with high female employment shares and simultaneously prevented many women from continuing to work during their increased child care duties. And yet, paradoxically, it seems that many governmental special task forces created to tackle precisely these challenges exhibit a striking underrepresentation of women. A survey of 115 national dedicated covid-19 committees in 87 countries shows that only 3.5% of these task forces have gender parity, while more than 80% are led by men. Let me be frank with you, ladies and gentlemen, the evidence is clear and mounting that uncomfortable imbalances such as these are not the result of random draws, much less of meritocratic selection.

Due to persistent stereotypes, path dependencies and status quo bias, women still face an uphill battle when it comes to making their voices heard and their rights respected. In her recent book, "Invisible Women Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men", Caroline Criado-Perez provides merit enlightening and sometimes breathtaking examples testifying to the unfortunate timelessness of what Simone de Beauvoir has put into words already more than 70 years ago. And to quote de Beauvoir, "The representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of man. They describe it from their point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth." Session one of today's conference addresses the question of how to achieve gender inclusive visions and answers to our current challenges. Invincible rather than invisible our two panelists of session one, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and ECB President Christine Lagarde. They will undoubtedly have a lot to share with us when discussing the role of gender in economic policy making.

For all we know, measuring the causal effect of policies of gender parity and vice versa, identifying the influence of gender on policy decisions is notoriously hard now, as argued by Professor Isobella Profeta, one of our speakers in session two this afternoon, monetary policy making may be an exception to this rule. Since monetary policy is decided on the basis of fairly widely known technical considerations that can be controlled for an empirical work, it seems to be a particularly well-suited field of disentangling the impact of gender and public policy outcomes. Building on these insights. Recent research shows that gender indeed does matter for central banking. For example, while women tend to prioritize output and employment concerns during the deliberation phase of monetary policy meetings, their male colleagues appear to focus more on inflation and price stability. And for those of you who prefer narratives on regression tables, let me point towards a former Federal Reserve governor, Ben Bernanke's famous 2002 remarks on the impact of Anna Jacobson-Schwartz and Milton Friedman book "A Monetary History of the United States in 1887 to 1960" and I quote, "Regarding the Great Depression, you are right, we did it. We are very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." By revisiting the role of the Federal Reserve during the Great Depression of the 1930s and thereby shaping the intellectual roots of monetarism, Anna Schwartz crucially contributed to our understanding of economic crisis while also paving the way to price stability to become the dominant target of monetary policy. Hence, statistically, and anecdotally, there should be little doubt that increased female participation can exercise a decisive effect on central bank policies. I'm sure that Session two of today's conference will shed more light on how this effect plays out in concrete cases.

At the same time, the quest for gender parity must go beyond the realm of public policy making. Just as the impact of heated gender diversity in turns, it likes to influence the status quo of the private sector. Yet jumping to conclusions might be a little bit more difficult in this regard. Recent discussions about the likely effects of increased female leadership and finance illustrate this point quite nicely. On the one hand, what the economist described as the Lehman Sisters fancy as early as 2009, namely the idea that women are generally more risk averse than men has by now been established as a well-documented fact. On the other hand, a study by Professor Renminbi Adams, one of our panelists of tomorrow's session of three on gender and risk taking, provides an important nuance to these very interesting implications of general relationships between gender and risk aversion. Professor Adams would probably argue that all else being equal, stronger female representation on bank boards may indeed have a mitigating impact on the buildup of systemic risk in the financial system. To put this in President Lagarde words and let me quote again, "If it had been Lehman Sisters rather than Lehman Brothers in 2008, the world might well look a lot different today." However, the question remains, which things tend to be the equal? Professor Adams demonstrates how, due to the very specific selection into leadership roles, preferences of women CFOs or directors in finance may actually wildly differ from the preference otherwise expressed by representative samples of Western female populations. If that proposition holds true, would it be possible that Lehman Sisters might have behaved just like their male dominated real-life counterparts after all? I'm quite certain we all can't wait to hear the latest update on this discussion, which will be presented during session 3 tomorrow afternoon.

Those of you acquainted with the works of Virginia Woolf will know that the recourse to metaphorical sisters as a marvelous trick that allows us to imagine a counterfactual, more gender equal world was brilliantly used long before 2009. In her 1929 book, "A Room of One's Own", Woolf invents the life and fate of William Shakespeare's fictious sister to describe the unthinkable obstacles faced by young women attempting to express their genius at the time. Albeit as extraordinary gifted as her brother, Ms. Shakespeare, who, unlike Mr. Shakespeare, was barred from formal education, never manages to catch up with the lead her brother was so easily allowed to gain on her, not least because she was never given a real chance. Well, circumstances have certainly changed for the better since Shakespearian times, even today, the head start men oftentimes still profit from when compared to women remains an important source of inequality in many areas of our daily lives. To give you an example, the research of Professor Annamaria Lusardi, one of the panelists of tomorrow's closing session, highlights that in contrast to their male peers, women in the final stages of their careers are particularly prone to lack the financial literacy and skills to make appropriate financial plans for their retirement. Tomorrow's session 4 on gender, financial literacy, inflation, Covid-19 will shine a light on why exactly some segments of the female population are financially less literate and how to best address the gaps in their financial knowledge.

Ladies and gentlemen let me round up my opening remarks. Let me come back to what Criado Perez so clearly states in the afterword of her recent book, "To end gender inequality and the multiple persistent gender gaps, we need to close the female representation gap. Only if women are adequately represented in Decision-Making Bodies, in research and in all other areas of public life only then, will their voices be sufficiently heard. One way to accelerate the attainment of this goal is to actively give women a say in the public sphere." With more than 95% female speakers in the first Joint/SUERF/JVI/OeNB Vienna Economic Dialogue makes an important step in the right direction. Thank you for your attention and please do enjoy the conference.

Claire Jones: Thank you very much for those opening remarks, vice president. Hello to you all watching this afternoon. My name is Claire Jones. I work for the Financial Times, where I'm a reporter. And I'm delighted to welcome you to the first session of today's conference on the topic of gender and economic policy making. As I'm sure you're aware, today we've got two policy makers of the highest caliber. We have Kristalina Georgieva joining us from the International Monetary Fund in Washington, where she is Managing Director, a position she has held since October 2019. Before that, she was across the road at the World Bank where she was CEO. At the Fund, Madame Georgieva succeeded our second panelist, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who was the first female head of both the Central Bank of the Euro system and of the IMF. Before our two panelists give their opening remarks, I would first like to give the floor to Robert Holtzmann, governor of the National Bank of Austria. Robert. The floor is yours.

Robert Holzmann : Thank you very much, Claire. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening everyone. It is my great pleasure to welcome you here to the first session of this year's SUERF/Joint Vienna Institute/Austrian National Bank Conference on Gender, Money, and Finance. And, of course, particularly thankful to the highly distinguished panelists who have agreed to try and be here for this first session, as we've heard, it's some general economic policymaking. And as the Chair, Claire Jones, I could hardly imagine any more suitable, outstanding candidates, and role models for this panel. And hence I'm also very happy and I'm honored to welcome Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, as panelists to this first session. It's a special privilege also because I had the pleasure and privilege of working with them even now and in the past. Before the Chair will ask the two panelists to provide a short introductory statement to kick off for our discussion, let me briefly attempt, and believe me it's brief, to introduce the topic of this first session.

Our session’s title Gender and Economic Policymaking seems an appropriate starting point for this introduction. Yet as the title may suggest, only a focus of the session on the effects of gender, what effect gender can have on economic policymaking. Well, I believe the impact of economic policy making on gender diversity and parity constitutes a second equally valid perspective on our topic today. And here in her recent book, "Gender and Equality in Public Policy", Professor Paola Profeta whom I also had the pleasure of having professional contacts in the past and who will take care as part of the panelists of session two of this conference describes the two perspectives. The first perspective is the British economy angle, and the second one is the public economics view of the link between gender economic policymaking. Starting with the political aspect of our session, let me give you one concrete example why gender matters for economic policymaking and why gender diversity boosts the quality of policy decisions.

Clearly, I will focus on a special economic rationale and of course, there's a vast range of other moral, philosophical, political, and social economic reasons why increasing gender diversity should constitute a priority in policy making. In modern democracies the policy decisions are really made and taken by individuals alone. Decision-Making Bodies, often comprised committees of experts and politicians, are there for good reason. Only back in the 18th century, a certain Joaquin de Conduce noted that the majority of the imperfectly informed group is more likely to make a correct choice than any individual member of that group alone. Under the assumption that all crew members share the same common goal and, of course, of taking the correct decision by not being able to influence and communicate with each other before the voting, the probability of choosing the right option by majority decision converges to one as group size increases. Well, how does this insight relate now to gender diversity you make ask? Well, the superiority of committee decisions hinges on the degree of diversity in terms of information gathering and information processing characteristics of the group. Several decision makers with different signals or different perceptions of information at hand may put relevant facts, as decisions on the table that an individual decision maker possibly could. When my rate of scientific experiments has shown different genders, exhibited statistically different decision-making characteristics. The one is certain some of the best-known examples is this regard is the degree of altruism that we have heard of, difference in risk aversion, what we have, and also as those who know things well, negotiation strategies between men and women differ substantially. Hence, without gender parity, we may not only leave a large part of the global talent pool untapped, but we also risk forgoing significant improvements in the quality of economic decision making. Of course, some may argue that the assumptions underlying this theory may not hold in real life, the quality of decision can be hard to measure objectively or the impact of gender on economic policy making is difficult to separate from personal characteristics. Well, the context matters here as many selection effects. Yet why this challenge may be difficult to predict in a precise manner, increasing gender parity in economic policy outcomes, it is important to emphasize that they share one thing in common. None of them constitutes an argument for advocating against more gender diversity.

When you think about it, we constantly take policy decisions based on strong theoretical reasoning rather than on precise causal estimates of the policy at hand. I have to admit, monetary policy is not an exception to that. I think the time has come to apply the same standard when it comes to pushing more gender parity. This brings me to the second part, the public economics view and the link between gender economic policy making. The reasons why economic policymaking needs to play an active role in enhancing gender parity is not certainly limited to the benefit of the doubt argument we used in the past. Research has shown that gender inequality and gender gaps around the world often depend on nurture, not on nature. Persistent stereotypes are known to block inefficient equilibria due to intergenerational transmission of certain cultural values. But the status quo bias can prevent even very highly qualified women from ascending to the ranks and this rings certainly true when we look at economic policy decision-making bodies around the world. Hence, if we value an increase in gender diversity, and as I've argued we have good reason for that, could result to that sitting it out will not be a sufficient strategy to tackle these dynamic inefficiencies.

So, let me conclude, I hope that through this panel, we'll be able to shed light on both of these perspective during the sessions, by sharing simply with the panelists' personal, professional, and institutional experiences. So, ladies, and I do hope also gentlemen, I wish us all a fascinating panel now and the other three more panels today and tomorrow. So Madame Chair, Madame Managing Director, Madame President, the floor is yours.

Claire Jones : Thank you very much, Governor, for those opening remarks, which I think did a very good job of summing up why a lack of gender diversity is not only morally abhorrent, but inefficient from an economic policymaking standpoint. Thank you very much. President Lagarde, I'd now like to give you the floor. Thank you.

Christine Lagarde : Thank you very much, Claire, and to you Robert, it's a real privilege to participate in this panel, and I wish there were many more advocates of diversity like you, and I thank you for the opening remarks that you just gave. Really, I'm honored to be on this panel with my colleague, friend, and sister Kristalina. I hope neither of us ends up like Virginia Woolf despite all the admiration that we can have for the writer. So let's get right into the meat of the debate. What I would like to do is actually focus my comments and my remarks on the European scene because that is where I'm involved at the moment. That's where I'm trying to make a difference. So where do we stand in terms of diversity, contribution of women to the economy, gender equality, and inclusion? Not so well, wherever you look in Europe, women are underrepresented. Whether you look at most economic sectors, whether you look at all decision making and policy circles, whether you look at parliaments, for instance, women are underrepresented. In Europe, European Parliaments include about one third of women representatives. If we look at most of the board of publicly quoted companies, again, a little less than one third of board members are women. And if you look at chairmen and CEOs, it's hardly 8% CEOs and chairmen are women in publicly quoted companies. So not great. Clear underrepresentation. Does it look better in central banking circles, in banking circles at large? Not really. When I look back at the history of the ECB, of all National Central Bank Governors that sat at the table of the Governing Council of the ECB. There was only one woman, one in 20 years’ time. Up until now, we're luckily with Isabel Schnabel, who is a member of the board and myself are not two women. So we doubled the number of women, history, but it's only two out of 25. And if we look at the banking sector at large, and this is based on a very good study that was conducted by terribly competent economists at the IMF, which I'm sure has been updated since my days, under your leadership, Kristalina, 20% of board members are women and only 2% are CEO or chairman. So nothing really to write home about. And we clearly need to see an improved situation. I think there is hope, because I look at those that are sitting just behind those at the head table and the deputy governors are almost half women, half men. So if things go well, there will be progress. It's a big if because moving from being deputy or being second in command to being in charge or in command is a big, big step to climb.

Now, I'm not going to go into why diversity matters, why we make better decisions, why we enrich the conversation, I think Robert was eloquent and quoted all the right references, and I'm not going to go much into that. But in terms of the banking sector, again, borrowing from the data and the good research conducted under Ratna Sayeh and the team at the time, there is not necessarily a causality, but certainly a correlation between the composition of the board and the number of women on board and bank stability, size of non-performing loans, ratios if you will, capital buffers, so a more stable environment clearly correlated with a more diverse board in the banking sector. That is true as well in the supervision sector as well. So we might ask ourselves, you know, why is it that there are so few women when actually they are talented, and they bring the stability that many of us aspire to? I think there are many factors to that. One of them is that there is some scarcity of talent to begin with because there are fewer women studying economics, particularly in the areas that matter. When you look at macroeconomics, when you look at finance graduates, postgrad, you find a much smaller proportion of women than men. So the pool is smaller. From that pool, we can extract the most talented contributors. There's no question about it. But the pool is smaller. The second one that I would observe as a factor and which I have seen in my professional life over the last 40 years, is that there is a bias and sometimes an unconscious bias against women, whether at recruitment level or at promotion level. And that is often demonstrated by those behavioral studies or sometimes the coaching that simply identifies those unconscious bias. And I would say, third, despite all the efforts that are made because of the fact that it's just hard for women to reconcile the career development that they aspire to and deserve and the family that they want, eventually they want to set up and grow because everything collides at the same time in that period of their life, when career development matters a lot and maternity can take place. So can things be done to change that? Yes. At the ECB, we are trying hard by having targets, by setting ourselves targets on the very disaggregated level and granular level, by setting ourselves different kinds of objectives depending on the overall size, but also depending on focused on new entries and openings for which we have committed that 50% at all levels of the organization, by 2026, will be women. We have also yet we are relying on the whole gambit of things from this and from now, I was going to say sponsorship, but I'll come to sponsorship in a minute from role models, from godmothers and godfathers, from leadership training to diversity ambassadors and so on, so forth. But what all organizations should actually do because it does help. But we're trying to see beyond the ECB, and we have set up actually a scholarship that we fund ourselves. And it doesn't it's not intended just for ECB staff. It's for anybody at Masters level who is intending on continuing studies at postmaster level, who is a female who is facing financial hardship to continue and for whom scholarships are available. I'm signaling that because the deadline actually ends next week. So for those in the audience who are keen to continue their study and face financial hardship, still time to register and to try to apply we have quite a lot of candidates and dedicated staff members of the ECB that are scrutinizing the applications and will be attributing those scholarships. And I would add as a final point, because I know that we should be brief, that in addition to talent and competence and the waste of it, that leads to bad quality decisions or at least quality that could be improved. I would like to just remind ourselves that women are identified as carrier, mediator, merchants of trust, and that has been particularly evident during the time of crisis. When you look at the studies that were recently conducted, there's a very good Harvard Business School publication that was issued recently. Women are perceived not necessarily are, but are perceived by public opinion, by constituents as better managers, better leaders in times of crisis, and the cause for that is because they inspire more trust. Trust is something that is very much in demand at the moment and that is in shortage. So not to rely on women, not to use them, not to include them, is clearly passing on something that is very, very seriously needed at the moment. I don't want to go into how much the pandemic has actually hurt women more than it does hurt men. I think we have ambiguous numbers in terms of employment, depending on the period of time, quarter-by-quarter. It has evolved. It has changed. And I don't think that we can generalize and say that they have been more hit in terms of unemployment. But in terms of hardship, I would contend that they were certainly hardest hit because they started off from a less equal footing and the pandemic has certainly aggravated and accelerated the inequalities that we have seen around. So I would like to finish here, Claire, and let Kristalina take the floor and take a much broader view than the European view that I have tried to focus on. Thank you.

Claire Jones : Thank you for that, Madam President, for just showing us that even though we've come very far, clearly, with the likes of you two on the panel, there's still a long way to go. It's interesting to hear some of the measures that the ECB has taken to address that and it's particularly interesting, I think the point you raised about there being a lot of females that the deputy governor level and whether that translates into the leadership role and also the point about family, which I think is something that's being felt acutely in a lot of homes during the pandemic. But let me turn now to the Managing Director Georgieva. The floor is yours, thank you.

Kristalina Georgieva : Thank you. Thank you very much, Claire, and wonderful to be together with Christine Lagarde. And to listen to Vice-President Kolm, to Governor Holtzmann, what you would hear from me would echo a lot of what they have already said. And I would try to expand it a bit in the context of where the world economy is today. What is ahead of us? There is no question that at the time of wrestling with the worst crisis we have experienced in peacetime since the Great Depression, we need all the talent of this planet, men and women. And also there is such a strong evidence that when women are involved in decision making, communities fare better, countries fare better, the world fares better. And it is right now paramount that we recognize how much we have to step up, we women, but also men to make more space for women, and I will concentrate on three critical challenges that are ahead of us. The first one is this crisis, even when we come on the other side of it, will leave some deep scarring. It will leave scarring because of educational attainment. Many children have lost more than a year of studies in developing countries. Where internet penetration is not the same, in Africa it is only 50%, it meant losing on school, leaving school, and we know that when school resumes, fewer girls would go back than boys. When we look forward, it is critical to press so education steps up investment in human capital, in education, in health and social protection are strong and that they are provided to boys and girls, men and women on equal footing.

Even more significant scarring from this crisis is the increase in inequalities within countries across countries, a dangerous divergence that can severely impact the fabric, the very fabric of our societies. Within countries, we know who is hit the hardest, young people, low skilled workers, and women and Christine is right that the evidence on employment in advanced economies is ambiguous. It looks like there is a return to employment that is fairly equal from the gender perspective, but in developing countries this is not yet the case. In developing countries, women are more in the informal economy, that in the contact dependent industries is really suffering. And in both developed and developing countries, this recession is a mom-cession we called it she-cession, but the accurate term is mom-cession because it is mothers of young children that have the hardest time to return to work and when they are low skilled, the hit on them is very severe. Across countries we see advanced economies pulling out. They have more fiscal space to act, more monetary policy space, they also have much better access to vaccinations. Whereas developing countries, for these two reasons are being constrained, are falling further behind. And again, we have to think of how we can overcome this scarring by bringing more the care and empathy of women.

Christine spoke very clearly about trust that women are more trusted. Women also show more empathy, they're more likely to think about the vulnerable, those that are left out there, they're more likely to recognize that policies are for people. And we need to understand how different groups of people are affected and therefore much more likely to pull us out of this. And my message is to women, step up, step up, be counted. And, of course, that is a long-term proposition. We have made some progress; we have to do more. My second point is on the biggest lesson we learned from this crisis, and it is the importance of resilience. After 2009, we concentrated on the resilience of the banking sector. And it has paid off. We are not faced right now with a financial crisis. But that concept of resilience was too narrow. First, it did not include the nonbanking financial institutions, the unfinished agenda from 2009, but second it doesn't recognize that in a more shock prone world than we know, climate is a big source of shocks yet to come, we have to build resilience in a more comprehensive manner. And it is much more likely when we have women at the decision table that this would happen. Resilient people, resilient planet, resilient economy. And to respond to Christine, she asked whether we have updated the study that that says despite the evidence that women in leadership positions in the financial sector correlates to more resilient financial sector. The picture is pathetic. I mean, only 2%, Christine, still 2%. There hasn't been a big move up of women, CEOs of banks and slightly more than 20% of women on boards. I, for one, believe that we have to be determined on the question of should there be quotas. I am of the view that, yes, if we know that our financial sector will perform better with more women. And we see they're too slow to climb up, maybe we do have to put the ladder and force that climbing up to happen faster. I can live with targets, but I cannot accept that we just let it happen on its own because it's going to be too slow to serve the world, not just women. My third point is digital. Who is the big winner of this crisis? It is the digital economy and there the place of women is still to be acquired. Only 10% of Fintech owners and board members are women. And that holds the increased digital access to digitalization for women. And it holds back the expansion of women in Fintech. And actually, the IFC has done a very interesting study that shows that first investment teams are tilted towards being mostly men in Fintech. And then second, when you have women, the likelihood of opening up investment opportunities for women jumps up multiple times. So if we want the future to be one in which the access to Fintech and the development of entrepreneurship of women is boosted, now is the time to again press and step up.

I want to say a word, and Christine also talked about it, on our own responsibility. We have to walk our own talk. At the IMF, I was very fortunate to come after Christine. She built that clear understanding that womenomics is just good economics, we have gotten ahead. She built a pipeline of women and I am very proud, Christine, I have been waiting for this moment to report to you. Because you built this pipeline from 25%, we are now close to 40% of women directors, to be exact we have 37% women directors, and we will go to equality in the ranks for sure because we are building this pipeline. But most importantly, the IMF is very actively engaging the membership on building capacity in finance authorities, in economic policy, especially on the issue of gender-based budgeting, because when budgets change, then the economy does better. And over the last year of crisis, we have been relentless in pressing for this gender-based budgeting because of the scarring I spoke about, because of the pressing needs to come out of the crisis stronger. We have done overall training on gender-based budgeting for 114 countries, a lot of it with the Joint Vienna Institute. Last year alone, 2020, we did training for 58 countries and I take full responsibility for us to be watchful. We appointed the first in the history of the IMF senior adviser on gender because the moment is now. The moment is now not only not to allow to go back on gender equality, but to step forward. And this discussion today, tomorrow, I do believe is the right way to engage in a very determined manner to step forward. Thank you, Claire. Thank you, everybody.

Claire Jones : Thank you very much for those remarks, you gave a really nice sense of the international dimension to this and also, I think, linking it with climate change of the pandemic about the need to really act fast and I thought I saw the Madame President nodding away furiously at parts of the conversation. So that was good to see so thank you, thank you both. Really good start to the session. I'm now going to turn to the Q&A portion of the debate. I'd like to remind viewers that the floor is going to be open to you later so please do submit your questions. Please keep them to the topic of the panel, if possible too, via the chat panel and then they'll be forwarded to me. But before you guys get a chance to ask your questions, I'm going to ask three of my own. So I'd just like to touch on something which was mentioned by you, Managing Director, in your opening remarks. And there's a nice quote, I think that you put as "Christine Lagarde broke the glass ceiling. I came through no cuts for me", which I think really underlines just how important it is to have predecessors paving the way for you. So it would be good for you to both to talk a little bit more now about how important have female role models been in your career. And if I could maybe ask the Managing Director to speak first and then to you, Madam President. Thank you.

Kristalina Georgieva : Thank you. And it has been important in my life to look up to women and be excited by what they have achieved. And, of course, Christine, I consider, as she said, a sister, a mentor, and an inspiration for me. The woman that impacted me the most is Chancellor Angela Merkel. And she impacted me the most for many reasons, one is like me, she comes from communism, central planning. And she came with a very clear vision as to what good policies actually mean. Why what we had led the system to go bankrupt. Why democracy and inclusion matter, but most importantly, because of the way we met for the first time and the memory I hold for this meeting. I was an environmental professional at the World Bank. I did well, I had a very good reputation in my field and Angela Merkel came to the World Bank as a minister of environment for Germany. I'm sitting in my office doing by my work the phone rings and it is the then Managing Director of the Bank calling me directly, personally saying Kristalina, whatever you are doing, drop it and come to my conference room. I rush to his conference room, I walked in, and what did I see? Angela Merkel with her delegation, all the women, the World Bank, all men. So I was called to the rescue to bring some gender diversity to say to Angela well there are women at the Bank. But that picture was embedded in my brain. And it actually led me to recognize that I personally have a responsibility to step up, that women have to take charge. So there is this diversity of views that we are able to make better decisions. And I have one message to women that are listening. Support other women, I cannot tell you how precious it is for me. I sit in the Spring Meetings this year of the IMF and Christine sends me a short text. Of Bravo, you did very well. It matters and I heard from Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, minister of finance of Canada, the same thing. I sent her a text then and she thought it was very important. So my message is we have to lift up our presence and our responsibility, and we need to recognize that there is camaraderie we owe to each other. Yes, he or she is important, but she for she is at least as equally important.

Claire Jones : Absolutely, I couldn't agree more and some really nice anecdotes there, too. If we could now to President Lagarde. Thank you.

Christine Lagarde : Oh, thank you. Thank you for your question. I don't have illustrious or famous examples to give you, but I have a very close one which has mattered to me all my life and still matters to me, although she's gone. But my clear main inspiration, first inspiration was my mother, who became a widow at the age of thirty nine, had four children to raise and had to sort of pull up her socks, roll up her sleeves, get on with the job, make a living, and more importantly make sure that we had the right education and could find our way in life. And the way in which she did that while always maintaining elegance and a high respect for our independence was to me, a clear inspiration that a woman can do it. And she certainly not only survived but thrived in a man world and in the face of adversity. Even though we're not necessarily trained for that, prepared for that, we can adjust, we can grit our teeth and smile, which is something that I've also learned from the synchronized swimming national coach that I had. And we used to say that when the going gets tough, grit your teeth and smile and things will look a lot better. So that would be one, I would say that the second one who was a real inspiration for me was the first and probably only boss I have ever had in my life, who was the only female partner at Baker McKenzie when I joined the international law firm. And she was an incredibly tough, fair, caring, and elegant woman. And I'll never forget as I was often confronted to the toughness of the lawyers world back 30 years ago, 40 years ago, actually, she used to say, you know, play the game of boys, fight the fight of boys, but never give up on yourself and stay true to yourself. And I think that there was a lot of value in what she said at the time. We don't we don't have to look to like them. We have different approaches, different attributes, different skills, and we can be in that game and we can win that game. There's no question in my mind, but we don't have to be the same. We have to be different and we have to insist on that difference. Now, in addition to inspiration from the past, I'd like to also agree with Kristalina. And as Madeleine Albright said, there's a special place in hell for women who do not help women. I think she was spot on he for she, she for she for sure. But it changes the conversation and it changes the whole environment and the perception when there are several women at the table, it's very lonely when you are the only one, and it's tough, but when there are two, three, four that changes the scene in a big way.

Claire Jones : Absolutely, and I think you've hit the nail on the head in saying why role models are so important from the sense of, you know, I think there is a feeling that if you want to succeed, you have to have these, quote unquote, male characteristics, whereas, like you said, bring what you have to the table, be true to yourself. And yet, I mean, I think that's the only way to be in the long run. I'd now like to turn to policy making. It's come up a few times already, but there's been a lot of people who've really, really suffered from the pandemic. It's really increased inequality, but I think it's fair to say that the brunt of the pandemic has been borne by women and I would think it would be important to ask the question now to both of you, is there a case for specific policies coming out of the crisis to target that disparity? And if so, what is the right balance between monetary and fiscal policies and structural policies look like if we could maybe go with you first, Madame President, the first question I know, but very important one, I think.

Christine Lagarde : You know, I'll spare you the acknowledgment, because whether they were on the frontline and working much harder than everybody else or whether they were in, you know, low skills and sometimes darker and underground sectors of the economy, it's clear that women took the brunt and the biggest brunt of the crisis. Particularly given the fact that no matter how much lip service we pay to equality, women tend to carry a heavier share of the, you know homes tasks and children bearing and schooling that took place during the pandemic, and I think that the numbers are there and speak for themselves. It's generally, you know, men do pick up a bit of that, but it's generally half of what women do on both accounts. Children and work at home as well as home work, actually. So it's a fact. You know, from a monetary point of view, there is a limited goal, if you will, a limited objective, which is that of price stability with a name which is in relation to inflation and clearly restoring, making sure that there is price stability, that there is financing in the economy, so that all entrepreneurs, men and women alike can have access to financing is something that that we always try to achieve. And on that page, I think that we have to continue doing that. We have to continue being accommodative because we certainly are not yet on the other side of the bridge of the pandemic. And we have to wait until we are well into the recovery to consider other options. I think we are still very much in that in that journey. But a lot of the burden actually falls on policy makers in the, you know, both using fiscal tools and using reforms and structural transformations of society. I think Kristalina has a lot more to say and documented on much more evidence than I do on that front. But if we can carry on working together, monetary and fiscal, continuing being accommodative to the other side of the bridge of the pandemic until we are well into the recovery and the economies can walk on their own without crutches, certainly the structural reforms are going to be the one that matters most in order to make sure that women not only are carried back to where they were pre pandemic, which was always the goals that will consider as to be achieved first, let's go back to the pre covid situation. Well it's not only pre covid situation when it comes to inequality, it's restoring the situation status quo, but also dealing with those inequalities that preexisted. And I'll leave it to Kristalina because she's dealing with those structural reforms much more than a central bank governor does.

Claire Jones : Kristalina, I'll turn the floor to you.

Kristalina Georgieva [00:58:27] Thank you. When we look at the policies from the perspective of women, how they are affected and how they contribute. Certainly, monetary policy has a role to the extent that I think as Christine said, thinking of the right balance between inflation and employment, these are questions that monetary policy is wrestling with. And there having more women, we heard that from Vice President Kolm, having more women is likely to bring more outcomes. But let me concentrate on fiscal policies. And I would put the problems we need to address in three parts. One, labor market participation of women and their ability to contribute to the economy. Two, the home work women do and what can be done to even the playing field between men and women. And three, policies related to gender-based violence. In the first segment, labor market participation, we need to look at the two sides of fiscal policy. One taxation make sure that that's the tax regime does not discourage women from participating in the labor force and we know that there is a difference whether you tax the family income or you tax individual income in terms of what is the impact on female participation in the labor force. We know that women have been going up in labor force participation, right now we are at about 68%, but this is still much lower than the participation of men around 79%. So we have to be clear that tax policy should not be discouraging women from stepping up. Even more important is what we do on the spending side. And this is where gender-based budgeting is so critical. In advanced economies, it is mostly about making sure that there is affordable day care, that schooling is organized in a way that doesn't affect detrimentally women, that there is a sufficient attention paid to how public spending supports training, retraining with attention to women. In developing countries, much more important issues are access to safe water, how the roads are being built, how much security there is in transportation for women. I remember vividly being in India and riding a women only car in the commuter rail and talking to women in this car and they were saying, thank God we now have this safety because if we are in mixed women and men, there is so much aggression and violence towards women that women just simply don't go to study, they don't go to work. So there are issues that are so very important in how we structure spending. So we actually are good for women and then comes from a from the perspective of where we are headed after this pandemic because, as Christine said, we are going forward, we are not going to go back. How we used what we have learned from flexibility in that using digital in internet technologies, that what we do right now to create more capacity for women to structure their work days as they fit their personal circumstances. And we need to very aggressively step up policies that allow for more inclusion of women. And I want to say a word on policies related to gender based violence. It is incredibly disturbing. We have seen in some countries calls to hotlines increasing up to five times. And I think it is still the other undervalued assessment of what is happening. And I'm sorry, I forgot a very important piece. And it is policies for parenting, making sure that leave is provided to parents in an equal manner so we can have women and men pursuing their careers and looking after their families. Christine said it, multiple increases in hours women now spent at work, almost twice as much as men to look after children, to look after the families, and that can be only corrected if we have the right policies that bring us closer to equality and that we write these policies in our budgets and then they stick.

Claire Jones : So we've just been through you clearly will say we've just been going through a massive crisis in the form of the pandemic. What's been if you had to pick one kind of like what's been the one big Eye-Opener in all of this as regards gender and economic policy making, what's really shocked you to the core as regards to what's happened in the past?

Kristalina Georgieva : Are you asking me or both of us

Claire Jones : You first.

Kristalina Georgieva : What shocked me the most was how easy it is to go back. How the pandemic, especially in the early months, disproportionately affected women. They are in the health care sector in much bigger numbers, 70, 80%, they are in contact dependent industries like hospitality, tourism and they really got hit very hard. And then on top of it, violence against women. I have before the pandemic; I was convinced that the tide has turned. That acceleration towards gender equality is for real and that my generation is going to be the last one when women have to work much harder than men just to be equal. And the pandemic threw some doubt whether indeed the tide has turned and only reinforced my determination, and I see the same with Christine. To not allow a reversal to press forward and use the pandemic as an opportunity on the economic case, gender equality is good for everybody. To move ahead, to move forward.

Claire Jones : Madam President, thank you very much.

Christine Lagarde : I completely share the concerns expressed by Kristalina, particularly in respect of violence against women. And domestic violence is in particular, most of which I think goes untold and continues to be hidden. The other thing that I had not anticipated, and that's probably because I don't have the background, but which goes across genders is actually how much our mental health has been you know affected by this pandemic. And it cuts both ways, it shows how fragile we are and how care and empathy, as identified earlier by Kristalina, are needed in order to support each other. So that's the dark side of it. We are vulnerable, we are fragile, and we need each other. Women and men can support each other, and women can bring something to the table. I think the bright side of it is that it is because we are together. It is because of those social ties. That is because we form societies that we are mentally a bit more stable. Sometimes I question my own stability occasionally, but be it as it may, and that's encouraging. You know, we are not those sort of lonely characters trying to find and make sense of all this, we are in this together. We were in this mess together. We are going to have to come out of it together and we better make sure that we can be together. You know, yesterday in Paris, cafes reopened. And it was just unbelievable to see suddenly men and women sitting at tables enjoying a cafe at the terrace. And suddenly this balance between individuals, men and women, really restored a sense of community. We have to work in those directions and communities will not be formed and will not be restored if they don't include equally men and women with the same respect and the same space.

Claire Jones : Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, that's the thing I think we should take across all of the sessions in this event. Just to remind ourselves how fragile economic progress can be and how important it is to show solidarity in ensuring that the progress that has been made is not reversed. And we've been not surprisingly, we've been inundated with questions. So I'm going to skip my final question and move on to some questions from the audience. First of all, I'd like to ask an interesting one from Katinka Novotny of the Austrian broadcaster ORF, who asks "Studies have shown women tend to be more cautious. Are they missing out in a low interest rate world?" I think that's one for you first Mme president.

Christine Lagarde : It's not because interests are low for long that women are not successful when it comes to financial performance. I think that, you know, there are so few women and in those activities, in trading, in investing, that it's probably difficult to actually draw from empirical research some definite findings. But the little research that has been done, I know that there was some that was conducted by BlackRock if I recall, there was also a study that was done by Wharton and another one I can't remember who it was by. But anyway, all those studies led to the same conclusion that women actually outperformed men. Now generally, it was associated with two things. One is they took a longer-term view of investment. And the frequency of their trading was a bit slower. But be it as it may, the result was there, they were outperforming men and sometimes in not insignificant proportions. So I would trust women, whatever the environment. They can just do it and sometimes better.

Claire Jones : Sure maybe to update the Lehman Brothers Sisters parallel, we could maybe look at Bitcoin Bros rather than Bitcoin Sisters and yeah, I think that might have some effect on it.

Christine Lagarde : I bet you there are few investors in bitcoins in the female community of investors than in the male community of investors. But that's only that's only a bet. I'd be very surprised if I was wrong.

Kristalina Georgieva : If I can add to that, so take the continent of Africa. The evidence is categorical that African women are better entrepreneurs than African men. And African women have six times less access to financing than African men. So the question for us is where women entrepreneurship is still not blossoming, what are the policies that can be put in place to create more opportunities for women in this low interest rate environment? In other words, we need to remember that sometimes women are not participating, not because they're cautious, but because they have no access. And my second point is that given where we are with the real economy recovering in some parts of the world, faster than in others, but in some parts struggling to recover and where the market is and the fact that more and more the term frothing is being used, that there is a little bit over overvalue. Maybe it is not a bad thing to have a bit more caution, so we don't end up creating more risks than is appropriately to bear. So these are my two contributions. One, give more access to women if you want them to be there more. And two, don't forget that it is not so bad to have aggressive behavior and caution all in the same place.

Claire Jones : And I've always wanted with this topic, which touches on another question that we've got from Julie Nelson who's one of the speakers, one of the forthcoming panels tomorrow, and who notes about these characteristics of caution and whether women are more caring and empathetic. Now, how do you view that? I mean, Julie makes the point is that all women, some women, women on average? And is it something which you think is this innate to women or is this a factor of the experience in the environment of women perhaps feeling oppressed in certain situations and that leading to an abundance of caution? How would you view that?

Kristalina Georgieva : But the evidence is actually not so categorical that all women are conscious all the time. In fact, there are some studies that show that women are taking more risk in that, Christine talked very well about it, in this long-term horizon that they put in mind, not necessarily they are all the time more risk adverse. I do believe that there are different perspectives, we bring men and women. And I also very much agree that not all women are all the same. But most women tend to be more consensus oriented, more willing to listen to different points of view before coming to closure, more inclusive, and that is documented in many, many, many studies. Also, there are some studies that show that women tend to be less corruptible. But also, some evidence shows that when women are corrupt, they're very corrupt. So I do believe we should be careful not to generalize too much, but to recognize that there are different perspectives. And that is what makes the decision making better as a result.

Claire Jones : So it's more of a variety. And we've got another question which I'd like to pose to you to Madame Lagarde. This is from Rachel King, who makes the point that there are indications that women lack confidence in applying for senior roles and also making decisions around family and career balance. Again, issues we've touched on. But Rachel's question is, "How should central banks approach that psychological element of improving diversity and how can they support staff enough in that respect? And is positive discrimination an option here." Thank you.

Christine Lagarde : I think that Rachel, if that's the name you mentioned, is totally correct, there is a great book that was published a few years back and may be updated recently by Kathy Kay and Claire Shipman, which is called "The Confidence Code", really worth reading. And they actually produced a version for young girls, which I highly recommend. And they show a lot of research that, yes, there is that that element of confidence that we are lacking, and I include myself in that, we tend to overprepare. We tend to read more briefs than our colleagues. We tend to get up early in the morning when we have to give a speech in the afternoon, and it goes on and on. Go down the list, check with all women in power in any sectors of the world, corporate or public, it's the same. OK, so I think that they really demonstrated that point ad nauseum, I would say, because I'm sorry that this is the case, but it is the case. So how do we deal with that, particularly with younger women who are coming up and who should be able to climb the ladder, as Kristalina was saying. I think that we have to recognize that that confidence factor is sometimes lacking and we have to give a push whether that push is in the form of you know, getting the person whom you think is actually right, but who's convinced that she's not up to it, just too much to do at home, she will never be able to spend the time. Going to that person and explaining that number one, yes, she can do it, number two, she will get help along the way, number three, compromising on both fronts will be will be OK and the level of expectations might be a little lowered on occasions so that it's compatible with what she has to do or what she feels she has to do at home. So I think an active approach is necessary in the same way. Promoting people is something that management in all sectors should scrutinize very carefully, because usually large organizations, it goes up by departments, by sectors. And if you stop putting your nose into it, you soon find out that promotions are facilitated for men and they're much harder for a women. Again, unconscious bias hurdle along the way, difficulties that just need to be addressed, taken into account and promotion yet decided. So I don't know whether you call that positive discrimination or whatever, but actively seeking those whom you think can do it, inspiring them the confidence that they deserve, that they should have, that we are lacking and then facilitating it all along so that actually that those talents that are there can be accomplished. So by the way, there's one thing that I keep repeating, you know, I've been in this job for 40 years plus now, and honestly, I have yet to see a woman who comes to me, particularly in the private sector, where I spent 20 years, who comes to me and says, I'm worth a bigger raise. I'm entitled to a bigger bonus because I'm worth it. I've seen so many men come and say, oh yes of course I should have that bonus.

Claire Jones : So, yeah, I think that's a very, very good point, that I think they say that men tend to apply for jobs where they only meet a certain number of the criteria, whereas women think they have to be pretty much all of them before they'll even consider applying. And I guess the same certainly comes to pay as well. That's a great insight. I would like to draw on the Managing Directors experience a little bit in academia. We've got a very interesting question here from Fatiha Tahiti, who asks, "The debate so far is really focused on financial leadership and policy making, but what about the role of women in teaching finance and publishing articles and books and in making more research available on this topic?"

Kristalina Georgieva : Well, this is an excellent question. And one that recently, Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary of the US and myself discussed in a session called The Age of Womenomics. So where we are today, unfortunately, still, as Christine said earlier, women in economics, especially in the more quantitative side of economics, are few and far between. And the presence of women in teaching in economics is still not where it has to be, and there is clearly unconscious and maybe sometimes conscious bias. Research done shows that one, women in economics have had a harder time to progress two, when women present their findings, they are more likely to be teared to pieces than men, and three, when it comes down to expanding women, in other words, promoting economics to women, it is not yet as effective as it is in STEM. And that surprised me. I thought that economics being a social science would be easier to penetrate than, say, physics or the kind of the really hard-core natural sciences. It is not the case. So what it means is that we have a huge responsibility to turn this around, to be very clear around the problems that exist and then put in place structural measures to address these problems. I'm very impressed by what Christine is doing in the ECB, putting forward scholarships. I actually thought we need to look at what we do at the Fund. We are extremely determined to get more young women to come to work, to work as young women economists, but also to promote the success of women. And here is some good news. When academics, women academics succeed, that has probably the best marketing impact. I'm extremely proud of Christine recruiting Gita Gopinath to be the Chief Economist of the IMF. She came from Harvard. She has tenure in Harvard. She's fantastic. We have a Chief Economist at the World Bank, a woman following another woman. And that is where the biggest marketing comes. Having Janet Yellen and Chrystia Freeland, Finance Ministers of two big economies, Nadia Calvino in Spain, Sri Mulyani in Indonesia, central bankers, women in Malaysia, in Russia. We ought to lift up these examples, but also to conclude we have a responsibility to actually more often go to campuses. And listening to your question, I'm marking for myself, Kristalina put on the calendar at least two or three times a year be in universities. Talk to young people, excite them about a professional future in economics.

Claire Jones : I think that would be super, super helpful. I mean, it touches on another question that Ludovico Skalka raises here about, you know, when does this issue start? I mean, clearly, it's an issue for some of the reasons you've listed in academia. But should the educational institutions themselves be doing more to encourage women to engage in a career, more women to apply for undergraduate programs and master's programs and so on and so forth? Do you think that helps or is more the kind of the culture that exists wants women to start to study the issue here?

Kristalina Georgieva : Well, I actually see a very big role in public policy. Making it more accessible for young girls to get into universities in economics, and we know that scholarships are a very important instrument, make it more attractive. Structurally, if you know that you have a problem, deal with the problem proactively. And also, we have to figure out, and we haven't quite yet done it, how to emulate what is done in STEM. I visited once in Germany, a very cool high-tech factory. They built it with glass where the things are happening, the robots and whatnot, and they would bring classes of boys and girls, and the target are the girls to get them excited. So how can we emulate something like this in economics? How can we make it cool and bring the kids, younger age high schoolers to see the coolness of it? It's a bit unrelated, but significant. One of the things I take pride in my life is that in 89, when Bulgaria moved from central planning to markets, I wrote the first macroeconomics and microeconomics, actually microeconomics first and then market economics textbook. I wrote it for young people who lived in a non-market economy, so I made an extra effort. So it is fun, and it is understandable and it's simple and it has anecdotes and students can actually laugh when they read it and understand it. And I'm now thinking, well, and by the way, they still read this. I mean, it is still in circulation because it is so simple. Maybe we have to do some of this, you know, how do we get into cartoons that are fun in economics? So kids get more excited about it.

Claire Jones : Absolutely, I mean, I think that's one of the problems I found in economics education was that there isn't enough emphasis on kind of making an echo what is happening in the real world sometimes. I mean, this is go back a few decades now. So maybe it's changed since. But, um, yeah, I think that it sounds like a really interesting textbook.

Kristalina Georgieva : It hasn't changed.

Claire Jones : Oh God, that's dispiriting. I think there was a lot of hubris about as well in economics was my impression. And they thought they'd solved all the kind of like they had all the answers to all of the big questions about what to do in aggregate demand

Christine Lagarde : Yeah they still think so. Can I mention one thing because we're finding it helpful and I think to change it a little bit. But in addition to the scholarship, we're also now doing and have been doing for a few years. So it's not me who started it, it was my predecessor, Mario Draghi. We have an annual contest amongst all schools of Europe. So the 19 member states of the Euro-area. It's organized at the national level and students have to form groups and they compete to get the award of the best project in economics. They pick and choose the topic; they pick and choose the way in which they present. It can be cartoon’s; it can be a game. It can be anything that is their media and the way they communicate, but it has to be on economics. And it's amazing the quality, the depth, the variety, and the diversity that we are receiving. Those kids, they are 14, 15. They can be less than that, but they can't be more either. And they're just so excited to participate and to be elevated from their school level to the province to the national level. They get to meet with the National Central Bank Governor. I'm sure that Robert Holzmann actually had some of them visiting him. And then the best of the best, they get to come to the ECB, and they receive the award. And I give them a speech and they take a photo with me. And it all sounds a bit silly, but it's really important. And for some of them, they've said, I had a team of all girls last week because we gave the award last week, all girls from Luxembourg, six of them all together, you know, winning this contest for the country. And some of them said, I want to be an economist. I really enjoyed that so much and I want to be one of one of you. So I think there are lots of little things that we can do to give them the not the passion, but at least the interest in how things are organized.

Claire Jones : Would you think it really speaks nicely into the final question that I'd like to ask? I'm really sorry if we hadn't had a chance to ask your question. We've had so many, but I've tried to ask as many as possible. But just as a final takeaway, I'd like to ask both of you for the young, would-be economic policy makers sitting in their home today watching this, what would be your one piece of advice about how to achieve their dreams?

Kristalina Georgieva : To young women, believe in yourself and do not hesitate to step forward. You owe it to yourself first and foremost. But you actually owe it to your family, to your community, to your country. And do not shy away for asking what is right for you. It is so very important that we do benefit from your talents and can I share my favorite, favorite saying about women is from Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, "Women are like teabags. You don't know how strong they are until you put them in hot water." So my message to the young women, jump into this hot water. You are strong.

Claire Jones : That's the message to Germans when they try to make me a cup of tea as well, just don't forget how strong it ought to be when the water starts. But that's brilliant. Really, really nice. Nice note to end your remarks on. Madame Lagarde?

Christine Lagarde : You know, all of that Kristalina said, I completely echo. I would simply add never give up because no matter how strong you feel, no matter how confident you are, there will be obstacles along the way, of course. But don't give up and reach out to other people, because as groups, with other women, with other men, you will be stronger, but don't give up.

Claire Jones : Thanks very much. And just one more thing, one policymaking response that you'd like to tell people to take away from this is. If there's one thing that we really need to focus on coming out of the pandemic policy wise, what would that be?

Christine Lagarde : I would say just one thing, I would say put people first

Claire Jones : and Madame Georgieva?

Kristalina Georgieva : I subscribe 100 % to it. I would add, this aggregate your data, you need to understand how policies affect different groups of people, how they affect, women and then based your response on what you learn.

Claire Jones : Thank you very much. So I'd like to close now by thanking our audience for joining us, thanking the National Bank of Austria and SUERF and the JVI for putting on today's event. And most of all, thank you to the two panelists for a very especially engaging conversation. It's been a real pleasure and a real honor to have moderated. So thank you very much to both of you. And please stay tuned to the next part, which begins in 15 minutes. But that's it for now. Goodbye for now, bye everyone.