Catherine L. Mann is OECD Chief Economist and Head of the Economics Department since October 2014. Ms. Mann is responsible for advancing the Strategic Orientations of the OECD and ensuring the high impact and relevance of the work of the Department, including maximising current products like the OECD’s Economic Outlook and Interim Global Economic Assessment, country-based economic surveys and the Going for Growth report.
Ms. Mann ensures that the Department is at the forefront of economic thinking and coordinates the work of the Country and Policy Studies branches to create new opportunities and enhance synergies and co-operation with the whole of the OECD, including through contributions to horizontal projects.
Ms. Mann also supervises the contributions of the Economics Department to the New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) and Inclusive Growth (IG) initiatives and serves as the OECD Representative at the Deputies’ meetings of the G20 Finance Track.
Ms. Mann has enjoyed a distinguished career in the public sector and academia. Following 20-plus years in Washington DC, she was the Rosenberg Professor of Global Finance at Brandeis University and from 1997-2011 was a Senior Fellow and visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Earlier in her career Ms. Mann served as a Senior International Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in the White House and worked as a Special Assistant to the Vice-President for Development Economics/Chief Economist at the World Bank. She also spent 13 years on the Federal Reserve Board as a Senior Economist and Assistant Director in the International Finance Division.
She is a US citizen and holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Harvard University.