i will hand it over to jeff holland, the vice president for research at the pt peterson foundation emma to moderate the session. thank you, jeff. [applause] >> thank you all. thanks for having us. on behalf of the peterson foundation come i want to say how happy we are to sponsor this event am especially given the great fiscal policy agenda topics we have, including this one on global fiscal policy perspectives. we have a panel of distinguished economists who will be talking about this issue. i will introduce them first. they will be giving a five minute set of remarks or so to get us started. a reminder, send your questions in. i have the ipad now so i will be taking your questions during the session. the economic counselor and director of the research department at the international monetary fund. she is currently on leave of public service from harvard university's economics department, where she is the professor of international studies and economics. focuses onh international finance and macroeconomics. she has been published in many top economics journals. she has authored numerou

i will now handle over two jeff holland for research at the peterson foundation to moderate the session. thank you. [applause] thank you all for having us on behalf of the foundation i want to say how happy we are to sponsor the event and also here in the great fiscal policy agenda topic including this one on global policy perspectives suite of the distinguished economists i will introduce them first and they will each be giving a five minute set of remarks. as a reminder please send questions in. i've got the ipod so we will be taking questions during the session but they introduce of to panelists first we have the economic counselor and director of the research department of the international monetary fund. currently on leave of public service at the economics department where she is a professor of international studies and economics. research focuses on macroeconomics and also a numerous research article on exchange rate, international financial crisis, monetary policy and emerging crisis. coeditor of the book of economics and was the editor of the economic review. sheikh serves as t