Columbia Hosts 2026 Politics and Economics of International Finance Conference

On March 7, Columbia University hosted the annual meeting of the longstanding Politics and Economics of International Finance (PEIF) Research Group. Following many years of meeting at Harvard University, the PEIF conference will now alternate venues between Harvard and Columbia. The conference is coorganized and chaired by Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Jeffry Frieden, professor of international and public affairs and IGP Affiliated Faculty member at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and professor of political science at Columbia University. The conference was cohosted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, the Center for Political Economy, and the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University

The PEIF conference brought together finance and economic policymakers and nearly 50 political science and economic scholars who presented summaries of their ongoing research projects. Wenxin Du, Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management at the Harvard Business School, delivered a presentation titled “Are US Dollar and Treasury Bonds Still Special?” addressing the extent to which international investors and governments regard the dollar and Treasury securities as a safe asset, as has been the case in the past. Layna Mosley, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, spoke on “The (Domestic and International) Politics of Sovereign Finance,” exploring recent political and economic developments in international lending by both private and public entities. Jesse Schreger, associate professor at the Columbia Business School, presented an overview of his scholarship on “Geoeconomics,” the use of economic policies for geopolitical purposes. The three presentations were followed by a policy panel conversation with Professor Frankel, Emily Blanchard, associate professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and former chief economist of the Department of State, and Brent Neiman, Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics at Chicago Booth and former Deputy Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Finance.

Next year’s PEIF meeting will be held at Harvard, followed by a return to Columbia in 2028.