World Bank appoints Indian national Indermit Gill as chief economist

The World Bank has appointed Indian national Indermit Gill as the chief economist and senior vice president for development economics. Gill will succeed American economist Carmen Reinhart in the role.

His appointment will be effective 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. Indermit is widely respected for his intellectual contributions to development economics,” said World Bank president David Malpass.

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 is currently 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.

He 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.

Gill will be only the second Indian to serve as chief economist at the World Bank after Kaushik Basu who served in the job from 2012-2016.