On September 7 the inaugural event of the Jeronimas Stroinovskis Lectures took place in Vilnius University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. The Jeronimas Stroinovskis Lectures was established by the Bank of Lithuania in memory of Jeronimas Stroinovskis, rector of Vilnius University, from 1799 to 1806. He is the pioneer of political economy, a science that was then just emerging in the world. The establishment of these lectures institutionalized the practice of inviting a distinguished economist, generally from outside Lithuania, to give guest lectures during the school year. The Stroinovskis Lectures have twin aims: first, to present and elucidate research developments in Economics to a broad audience; while simultaneously educating and inspiring students to study Economics in all its facets.
During the inaugural event Andrei Zlate from the Federal Reserve Board gave lecture on "Macroeconomic Implications of Offshoring, Labor Migration, Remittances, and Training". Andrei Zlate is a Principal Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in the Division of Monetary Affairs. His research interests include banking and financial institutions, monetary and macro prudential policy, as well as open economy macroeconomics. Previously Andrei Zlate was a Senior Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the Department of Supervision, Regulation and Credit, and an Economist in the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of International Finance. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, he completed his PhD in Economics at Boston College.
During his lecture, Andrei Zlate discussed key patterns in offshoring and migration data and built a strong case for the role of models in explaining the data and providing policy insights. With the use of carefully calibrated models, economists can show the mechanism behind the procyclical nature of labor migration or output co-movement between countries engaged in offshoring. Also, as Andrei Zlate demonstrated, models can quantify the implications of migration policy not only at the macroeconomic level but also across the skills distribution. For instance, although less tight migration policy would generate gains for high-skilled workers and losses for low-skilled workers, transfer policies, e.g. progressive taxation, could compensate the losses and result in the net gain for the economy.
As significant migration flows or the volatility of international investment remain the reality, these topics and thus research insights remain relevant for many countries in our region as well.