Agustín Carstens

Agustín Carstens
General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 December 2017
Chair	Jens Weidmann
Preceded by	Jaime Caruana
Governor of the Bank of Mexico
In office 1 January 2010 – 30 November 2017
Preceded by	Guillermo Ortiz Martínez
Succeeded by	Alejandro Díaz de León
Secretary of Finance and Public Credit
In office 1 December 2006 – 9 December 2009
President	Felipe Calderón
Preceded by	Francisco Gil Díaz
Succeeded by	Ernesto Cordero
Personal details
Born	(1958-06-09) 9 June 1958 Mexico City, Mexico
Height
Spouse	Catherine Mansell
Education	Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology (BA) University of Chicago (MA, PhD)

Agustín Guillermo Carstens Carstens (born 9 June 1958 in Mexico City) and as treasurer of the Bank of Mexico. In 2011 he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Carstens took up his appointment as the general manager at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, where he was appointed to a five-year term, starting on 1 December 2017.

Early years

Carstens graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from the Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM). After working as an intern in the Bank of Mexico he received a scholarship and completed both a master's degree (1983) and a doctorate in economics (1985) at the University of Chicago. His thesis advisor was Michael Mussa, former economic counselor and director of the Department of Research at the International Monetary Fund from 1991 to 2001.

He is married to Catherine Mansell, an American academic, writer and economist who has authored several books on finance and on literary fiction and nonfiction under the pen name C. M. Mayo.

In the mid-1980s Carstens returned to Mexico and rejoined the Bank of Mexico. Before turning thirty he was appointed treasurer, effectively taking charge of the national reserves. Rising through the ranks in the early 1990s, he was appointed chief of staff of chairman Miguel Mancera, and served as Director General of Economic Research at the end of the 1990s, in charge of designing the Bank's economic policy with Governor Guillermo Ortiz Martínez in the aftermath of the Tequila Crisis and the Russian default crisis. While at the bank he produced several research articles on the Mexican economy and, in particular, co-authored an analysis of the Mexican Crisis along with then Deputy Governor Francisco Gil Díaz, which suggests the Mexican crisis was to a large extent an avoidable run on the Mexican peso brought about by external circumstances and political problems.

International Monetary Fund

Sitting between the minister of finance and the president of the Bank of Guatemala after an official visit to the country, on 8 July 2005.

U.S. Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Agustín Carstens signing a Letter of Intent that aimed to increase security in both countries and facilitate the flow of legal travel and trade, June 2009

After many years at the Bank of Mexico, Carstens took a position at the IMF and served as the deputy managing director – one of three deputies reporting to the director and the board— from 1 August 2003 to 16 October 2006.

Carstens left the IMF to coordinate the economic policy program of Felipe Calderón, then president-elect of Mexico, who appointed him as secretary of finance shortly after the election was validated.

Secretary of Finance

On 26 March 2007, Carstens was additionally appointed new chairman of the joint World Bank/IMF Development Committee, a position customarily occupied by a developing country finance minister.

As secretary, Carstens took the unconventional decision to hedge Mexico's oil earnings for 2009 against possible price falls, leading to an $8 billion profit for the country.

In the aftermath of the 2007 popular protests against rising food prices, Carstens regarded high food prices as a positive driver for investment in agriculture.

Bank of Mexico

Carstens was nominated to the Bank of Mexico on 9 December 2009 by President Felipe Calderón,

Economic views

He identifies five characteristics of business cycles in emerging economies that distinguish them from those in industrialized nations:

1. Business cycles in emerging economies are strongly tied to those in industrialized nations.
2. Cycles in emerging economies are more volatile
3. Volatility of emerging economies can be affected by additional factors that don't affect industrialized economies, such as price fluctuations
4. Rapid capital outflows made possible under corporate globalization can have severely harmful effects on emerging economies
5. Emerging economies are subject to the problems associated with exchange-rate regimes

Carstens claims that the solution to these problems is for emerging nations to:

1. Adopt more open trade and investment regimes
2. Allow market control of interest rates
3. Ensure that their banks are robust enough to handle severe macroeconomic changes
4. Enact structural changes such as central bank autonomy, privatization of production, reduced regulations over labor markets and reduced dependence on foreign savings

External links

• Agustín Carstens
• IMF Biography