Indermit Gill will be the second Indian, after Kaushik Basu, to become the chief economist of World Bank, the international financial institution that grants loan to middle and lower-income countries.
Basu had presided over the key position at the World Bank between 2012 and 2016. Two other prominent Indian economists - Raghuram Rajan and Gita Gopinath - have served as the chief economists of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an entity linked closely to the World Bank.
Gill's tenure will start from September 1, 2022, the World Bank said in a press release issued on July 21.
“Indermit Gill brings to this role a combination of leadership, invaluable expertise and practical experience working with country governments on macroeconomic imbalances, growth, poverty, institutions, conflict, and climate change,” World Bank President David Malpass had said.
Gill is currently World Bank's vice president for equitable growth, finance, and institutions, where he led work on macroeconomics, debt, trade, poverty, and governance. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution.
Gill spearheaded the influential 2009 World Development Report on "Economic Geography". His pioneering work includes introducing the concept of the “middle income trap” to describe how developing countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. He has published extensively on policy issues facing developing countries, sovereign debt, green growth, labor markets, poverty and inequality, and managing natural resource wealth.
Gill has also taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. A student of Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Robert E. Lucas Jr., Gill holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.
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