Global finance leader Carolyn A. Wilkins delivered the 2025 Berkowitz Lecture on March 20th. Wilkins, a visiting senior research scholar at Princeton University’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies delivered the lecture, What have we learned from Central Bank responses to COVID? The lecture referred to the first several months of the pandemic response during her term as a deputy governor at the Bank of Canada that ended in December 2020. Wilkins then went on to become an external member of the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England in June 2021. She is currently a visiting senior research scholar at Princeton University’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies.
Wilkins’ analysis of lessons learned included re-visiting inflation forecasts and re-thinking trade offs between output and employment. She also emphasized the need to continuously scan for worrisome interactions between monetary policy and financial stability. Where the central bank was most influential, Wilkins suggested, was in raising the bar on the extraordinary use of monetary policy tools. Finally, she recognized that success does not solely rest on the actions of the central bank.
A cornerstone of the Masters of Financial Economics student and alumni calendar, the annual lecture is sponsored by members of the Berkowitz family, former colleagues, and friends of the late Professor Michael Berkowitz, founder of the MFE program and a former chair of the Department of Economics.
“As a family we have always spoken of Michael in very personal ways,” said Phyllis Berkowitz of her late husband. “Coming here for the first time showed our grandchildren what their grandfather had accomplished in his life, and it opened their eyes to who he was and what he did in new ways.”
Two prizes were awarded during the event.
First year MFE student Kate Ni, an engineering graduate who was drawn to the MFE program after a co-op placement on Scotia Bank’s trading floor won the Varouj A. Aivazian Award.
“I was very surprised to win the award,” Ni said. “I’m very happy to be enrolled in the program and I’m very happy that my hard work has come to such a good result.”
Joseph Hunter, who recently completed his second year won the Michael Berkowitz Award. Hunter, who won the Aivazian Award last year is now a global markets analyst at the Bank of Montreal.
“This award really encapsulates putting my all into the program,” Hunter said. “I got so much out of it!”
Return to the Department of Economics website.
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