Sebastian Mallaby

Sebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he directs the Center for Geoeconomic Studies, focusing on the intersection between global economics, finance and geopolitics. His most recent book, More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, is a New York Times bestseller and has been praised by commentators in the Financial Times, the Economist, and dozens of other media.

A two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and former Washington Post columnist on economics and globalization, Mallaby also spent thirteen years at the Economist magazine, covering international finance in London and serving as the bureau chief in southern Africa, Japan, and Washington. Through his work at CFR, he provides brilliant acumen and unparalleled perspective to policy makers in the United States and internationally on a wide variety of issues, including globalization, the implications of the rise of newly emerging powers, trade and investment trends, international development, and economic policy.

SPEAKER TOPICS

Hedge Funds and the Future of Finance
The Outlook for the World Economy
Indebted Giant: The Economic Limits to U.S. Power

ABOUT Sebastian Mallaby (+/-)

A Sharp Eye and Insight on Historic World Events

An experienced journalist and an acclaimed author, Sebastian Mallaby joined CFR from the Washington Post, where he served as a columnist and editorial board member. Prior to joining the Post in 1999, Mallaby spent thirteen years with the Economist. While at the Economist, he worked in London, where he wrote about foreign policy and international finance; in Africa, where he covered Nelson Mandela’s release and the collapse of apartheid; and in Japan, where he covered the breakdown of the country’s political and economic consensus. Mallaby later served as the Economist’s Washington bureau chief and wrote the magazine’s weekly Lexington column on American politics and foreign policy.

Penetrating, Informative and Engaging

In 2003, Mallaby went on leave from the Washington Post to become a senior fellow at CFR, where he wrote a history of the World Bank under James Wolfensohn. The book, entitled The World’s Banker, was selected as an “Editor’s Choice” by the New York Times and became a Washington Post bestseller. His previous book, After Apartheid: The Future of South Africa, was named a New York Times Notable Book. He is a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist: once for editorials on Darfur and once for a series on economic inequality.

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SPEAKER TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS (+/-)

Hedge Funds and the Future of Finance

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, global regulators have focused on reining in the risks taken by commercial banks, investment banks and insurers. Drawing on colorful case studies from his best-selling history of hedge funds, Sebastian Mallaby explains why this approach is not enough. Experience shows that too-big-to-fail institutions will always take excessive risks, no matter what the regulatory constraints imposed upon them. Meanwhile, a sounder way of handling financial uncertainty is hiding in plain sight: Regulators could make the world a safer place by encouraging small-enough-to-fail hedge funds. Because of their powerful incentives to control risk and seek out contrarian insights, hedge funds are the one part of the financial system that came through the crisis well. To a surprising and unrecognized degree, the future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.

The Outlook for the World Economy

Since the world tumbled into recession in 2008-2009, global policy makers have committed an unprecedented quantity of public money in an effort to kick start growth. But they have met with only limited success: Growth in emerging markets has bounced back, but most of the rich world has experienced only the feeblest of recoveries. Drawing on his work as Director of the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and anchor of the Council’s marquee World Economic Update series, Sebastian Mallaby explains this uneven pattern of recovery. He predicts a future very different to the world we have experienced until now: One in which not only the BRICs but also other “frontier economies” gain strength, realizing astonishing productivity gains as workers move from the countryside and firms adopt western management insights; and one in which the hitherto advanced nations struggle under the burden of high debts, soaring health costs and negative demography.

Indebted Giant: The Economic Limits to U.S. Power

For the past quarter of a century, the United States has maintained an unrivalled military establishment as well as unnerving mountains of government debt. It has succeeded in doing this because the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency has facilitated limitless amounts of U.S. borrowing. But now the resulting debt burden casts a shadow over the U.S. ability to project power. The defense budget will have to be cut, the dollar’s reserve status is increasingly questioned, and the United States may find that foreign creditors attach tough conditions to their loans, potentially using these as levers in military stand-offs. Drawing on his work as the Director of the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sebastian Mallaby explains the vital connections between financial and military power. Never before has the world’s leading nation also been its leading debtor.

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Sebastian Mallaby