The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced the appointment of Gita Gopinath as its chief economist. She will succeed Maurice Obstfeld who retires at the end of this year as the economic counsellor and director of the IMF’s research department.
Gita Gopinath is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. She received her PhD in Economics from Princeton University in 2001 after earning a BA from University of Delhi and MA degrees from both the Delhi School of Economics and University of Washington. She has focused her area of research on International Finance and Macroeconomics.
Born in Mysuru, Gita joins the likes of former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan and Kaushik Basu who have served as chief economists of the IMF and the World Bank.
