Indermit Gill is the second Indian to hold the coveted position of chief economist at the World Bank after Kaushik Basu. Basu served from 2012 to 2016. Other prominent Indian-born economists Raghuram Rajan and Gita Gopinath served as chief economists at the International Monetary Fund, the sister organization of the World Bank.
World Bank President David Malpass believes Indermit Gill would bring invaluable expertise and practical experience to the multilateral institution. Gill himself feels he has big shoes to fill for his new assignment.
Gill brings with him two decades of operational work experience at the World Bank. During his previous stint from 1993 to 2016, he held several senior positions, including Director of Development Policy in the Office of the Chief Economist of the World Bank and Regional Chief Economist for the World Bank. Europe and Central Asia.
Gill is respected for his thoughtful leadership, having led the influential World Development Report 2009 on economic geography.
Gill is also considered for his pioneering work in developing the concept of the “middle-income trap” to describe how countries struggle to achieve higher income status after reaching certain income levels.
According to Rathin Roy, chief executive of the Overseas Development Institute in London, Gill has an interesting background. No other economist of recent times has had as much exposure to heterodox economics as Gill, he says. Gill is a “complete economist”.
A student of Nobel laureates Gary Becker and Robert Lucas, Gill holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, as well as a master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics. He was a professor at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago and was also a nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economics and Development Program at the Brookings Institution.
Contrary to popular opinion among economists, Gill is said to have a good sense of humor and loves to argue. Colleagues say, Gill is passionate about the state of the profession.
According to Arvind Virmani, former chief economic adviser to the government and India’s representative to the IMF, Indermit Gill has two distinctive advantages. He is an insider who has risen through the ranks and therefore knows the bank like the back of his hand, and can more easily contribute to improving the quality of World Bank advice.
Also coming from an emerging economy, Gill has a better understanding of the conditions and constraints under which developing countries in emerging markets operate and can better guide the development of policies that are more suitable and sustainable in their condition, Virmani said. Trade standard.
The immediate challenge for Gill is the high risks of stagflation facing advanced economies and the implications for emerging markets are highly uncertain. Gill would do well to bring certainty to how we view the world’s economic future and also to make progress on green and climate finance.
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