Wilson Center Experts
George Kopits
George Kopits is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC). Between 2009 and 2011 — elected unanimously by Parliament — he served as chairman of the Fiscal Council, Republic of Hungary. During 2004-09, he was a member of the Monetary Council, National Bank of Hungary.
Kopits began his professional career in 1968-74 at the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Treasury Department. In 1974, he joined the International Monetary Fund, where he served as assistant director until 2003. In the Fund’s European Department, his assignments included surveillance of major Mediterranean and Eastern European economies. In 1990, he was appointed group leader in the Task Force on the Soviet Economy. In the Fiscal Affairs Department, he coordinated several projects for the Executive Board, and contributed to the design and monitoring of Fund-supported adjustment programs.
In addition to involvement in fiscal and monetary policymaking in Hungary and the United States, Kopits headed technical assistance missions on various economic policy issues to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, Russia, and Ukraine. Also, he was invited to give technical advice by the authorities of Argentina, China, Colombia, India, Israel, Korea, Nigeria, Thailand, and Venezuela. Most recently, at the request of the authorities, he visited Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Kopits has held visiting academic appointments at Bocconi, Budapest, Cape Town, Johns Hopkins, Siena, and Vienna universities. Currently, he is on the adjunct faculty of the Central European University. He authored more than fifty publications.
At present, he is editing a volume on Restoring Public Debt Sustainability: the Role of Independent Fiscal Institutions, under a contract with Oxford University Press.
Education
Ph.D. in economics from Georgetown University, with the support of an NDEA fellowship
He studied at the Université de Fribourg
Major Publications
- “Monetary and Fiscal Policy from Transition to EU Integration: A Comparative Assessment” in B.Y. Kim and C. H. Lim, ed., Financial Sector Reform in Transition Economies (Seoul National University, 2009);
- “Inflation Targeting under Stress” Central Banking (November 2008);
- “Fiscal Indulgence in Central Europe: Loss of the External Anchor? ”Scottish Journal of Political Economy (February 2007);
- “Assessing Fiscal Sustainability under Uncertainty” Journal of Risk (Summer 2004);
- Rules-Based Fiscal Policy in Emerging Markets (Palgrave, 2004).
- “Central European EU Accession and Latin American Integration: Mutual Lessons in Macroeconomic Policy Design” North American Journal of Economics and Finance (December 2002).
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