Dr. Catherine Mann, chief economist and head of the Economics Department at the OECD came to USCIB on April 13 for wide-ranging discussion with members and staff.  Mann, one of the most senior U.S. citizens in the OECD secretariat, has extensive experience in Washington from her earlier positions at the Federal Reserve, the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Her presentation covered global trends in economic growth, productivity, and trade and investment, identifying some challenging issues ahead, and interesting work underway at the OECD in those areas. In that context, she had some particularly interesting observations on the Chinese economy and China’s economic relationships with the world. Mann is very interested in finding ways to strengthen private sector input into OECD’s work on economics and in other important areas.  Her very candid and thought-provoking observations gave members some interesting issues to ponder.