It is a great honor to give this lecture. A lecture that bears the name of a man who has greatly influenced economic policymaking. Both in theory and in practice, both at home and abroad. I saw Johan Witteveen a few times in the late 1990s, when I worked at the IMF.
As a former managing director he still had his office at the Fund, and he regularly visited to discuss economics and share his views with IMF staff.