ECONOMICS
Decentralisation is a key tool for economic development
Prof . Christopher A . Hartwell , Head of the International Management Institute at ZHAW School of Management and Law in Zurich , Professor at Kozminski University ( Warsaw )
Prof . Christopher A . Hartwell , first of all we would like to congratulate you with a new position . Would you be so kind as to tell us about your tasks and duties , do you have a specific plan and strategy ? Which program and projects are you planning to work on ?
Thank you for having me , it is always a pleasure .
I was brought into the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ( ZHAW ) to really make their International Management Institute into a world-class research institute . Previously , I worked as the president of CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research in Poland and helped them to get back to the top in terms of the league rankings ; they are the top think tank in Central and Eastern Europe and top internationally in terms of social policy . ZHAW is hoping that I have some more magic left in my bag , to be able to build their research functions , increase publications and impact , and also to increase collaboration with Central Asia , with the former Soviet Union , and with Central and Eastern Europe , because my expertise is here . The purpose is to drive this Swiss , Kazakh , Uzbek , and other types of joint ventures in research and in teaching with exchanges of students to build a worldclass research institution .
Taking into consideration your international experience and knowledge of many countries ’ economies , could you give a forecast of which countries will be among the first to overcome the consequences of the pandemic and what , in your opinion , is the criteria for a rapid response to the consequences of the global crisis that affected all countries ?
Yes , I think the important thing to remember here is that we are looking at two things . We are looking first at the effect of the virus and what it has done in terms of the way we all live our daily lives and the way we think about value chains and travel and things like that . And the other thing , the second thing , is the response to the crisis , whether or not we lockdown , whether we continue locking down or whether we say “ Okay , we will not have a lockdown , then we will have a lockdown ,” and the policy uncertainty that comes around with that .
I think the one thing we know is that nothing works … and perhaps everything works . There are countries that locked down very stringently and still had high levels of cases . Countries that did not lock down at all or had a very light lockdown like Switzerland and Sweden , often used as examples , also had high rates of cases . And then you can say that nobody really knows what the policy approaches should be and what is going to be better . I think what really matters in going forward is how severe the country was hit by COVID-19 . You look at some countries in emerging markets , and a country like Turkey has been growing economically , it hasn ’ t seen any kind of contraction like across the EU and it will continue to grow . And it has been hit by COVID-19 , but it did not impose a really stringent lockdown in terms of closing down its businesses across the country ( the government delegated that authority to both the provinces and businesses , but the country itself did not undergo a stringent lockdown which shuttered all businesses ). The United States was hit very hard by COVID-19 although covering an expanse that ’ s geographically differentiated .
But the issue is that it seems we ’ ve thrown out the idea of risk management in order to completely eradicate all risk , and I think that is
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