Danny Leipziger is the Managing Director of the Growth Dialogue, a network that works to extend economic growth to as many places on the planet as possible. Driven by a passionate belief that without growth, sustainable development and improvements in people’s lives are impossible, the Growth Dialogue seeks to connect high level policymakers and thought leaders with those whose policy decisions can benefit from practical experience and the latest work on economic growth.

 

Dr. Leipziger formerly headed the World Bank's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Vice Presidency, a network of more than 700 economists and other professionals working on economic policy, lending, and analytic work for the World Bank’s client countries. In this capacity, he provided strategic leadership and direction to Regional PREM units as well as groups working on economic policy formulation in the area of growth and poverty, debt, trade, gender, and public sector management and governance.

 

He was heavily involved in positioning the Bank on major economic policy issues and in managing the Bank’s overall interactions on these issues with key partner institutions – including the IMF, OECD, WTO, EU and the G8/G20. He led the repositioning of the World Bank on ecnonomic growth and launched the Bank's Gender Action Plan. He advised to three World Bank Presidents and represented the Bank at major international conferences.

 

Dr. Leipziger has also provided commentary and analysis in both English and Spanish to newspapers such as the Financial Times and Le Monde, as well as to television networks such as the BBC, CNN, and Bloomberg Television.

 

Other World Bank assignments included Director for Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure in the Latin America and Caribbean Region and managerial assignments at the World Bank Institute and in the East Asia and Pacific Region of the Bank. He served as the first Chair of the World Bank's Sanctions Board from 2005-2007.


Career highlights
included leading the Bank’s first ($3 billion) economic recovery loan for Korea in 1997, managing the program of bank restructuring in Argentina in the post-Tequila financial crisis in 1995, and opening the economic dialogue with Vietnam in 1989-1990.


Previous assignments:
Dr. Leipziger previously served in the Economic Bureau of the U.S. Department of State and on its Policy Planning Staff, where he was an economic advisor to the Secretary of State, as well as in USAID. Dr. Leipziger was Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of International Economics and Finance, Brandeis University (2001-2004).


Publications:
He has authored several books on Korea and East Asia, including Lessons from East Asia (1997), Preventing Banking Crises (1998), Chile: Policy Lessons (1999), Stuck in the Middle: Is Fiscal Policy Failing the Middle Class? (2009), Globalization and Growth (2010), and Ascent After Decline (2012). He has published more than 30 articles in economic journals and spoken often to various audiences on development policy and global economic issues. Recent published work has dealt with Issues of Globalization, the Role of the New Economic Powers, Privatization of Infrastructure Services, Moral Hazard Behavior in International Lending, and the Role of Infrastructure in Achieving the MDGs.

Education: Dr. Leipziger holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University and a BA in Economics from the City College of New York where he graduated magna cum laude.

 

Languages: English, German, Spanish.

 

Tel: 202-994-8202 | Fax: 202-994-2286