The World Bank’s top economist, Indermit Gill, will begin serving in that capacity on September 1, 2022.
After Kaushik Basu, Indermit Gill will be the second Indian to hold the position of chief economist at the World Bank, a global financial organisation that provides loans to low- and middle-income nations.
Between 2012 to 2016, Basu held the top post at the World Bank. Raghuram Rajan and Gita Gopinath, two other well-known Indian economists, have held the position of chief economists for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a body closely associated with the World Bank.
According to a July 21 news release from the World Bank, Gill’s term will begin on September 1, 2022.
“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 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.
As vice president for equitable growth, finance, and institutions at the World Bank, Gill oversaw projects pertaining to macroeconomics, debt, trade, poverty, and governance. He served as a professor of public policy at Duke University from 2016 to 2021 and a non-resident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development programme.
