The World Bank elected Indian Nationalist, Indermit Gill as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for the development of economics at the multilateral development bank.
David Malpass, World Bank President said that Indermit Gill is perfectly eligible for this role as he has a combination of leadership, invaluable expertise, and practical experience of working with the country governments on macroeconomics imbalances, growth, poverty, and institutions, conflict, and climate change.
Indermit Gill appointment as Chief economist will be effective from September 1, 2022.
Indermit Gill is the second Indian to work as the Chief Economist at World Bank. First Indian was Kaushik Basu who served the World Bank from 2012 to 2016. However, Raghuram Rajan and Gita Gopinath worked as Chief Economists at the International Monetary Fund which is the sister organization of the World Bank.
Gill tweeted on Twitter saying Carmen Reinhart who is the former Chief Economist at World Bank had left big shoes to fill. He is honored by the opportunity to follow in her footsteps.
Gill is well reputed for his intellectual contributions to economic development. He also led the significant 2009 World Development Report on Economic Geography. His first work includes the introduction of the concept of the middle-income trap which gives the idea of how developing countries stagnate after reaching a specific level of income. He has considerably published on policy issues facing developing countries, sovereign debt, green growth, labor markets, poverty, and inequality, and managing natural resource wealth.
At present, Gill is vice President for equitable growth, finance, and institutions at the Bank and has the responsibility to lead the work on macroeconomics, debt, trade, poverty, and governance. He was working as a professor of public policy at Duke University and a senior nonresident fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution between the period of 2016 to 2021.
Further, he has also worked as a professor at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. He is a student of Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Robert E Lucas Jr and has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He also has an MA from the Delhi School of Economics, and a BA (with honors) in Economics from St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
