Gita Gopinath becomes the first female chief economist of IMF

Gita Gopinath has joined International Monetary Fund as its chief economist. She is the first woman to occupy the post of chief economist of IMF. She is the 11th chief economist of the IMF.

Role of Chief Economist of IMF

The chief economist of IMF undertakes the following functions:

• The Chief Economist is also the Director of the Fund’s Research Department and is responsible for providing independent advice to the Fund on its policy issues, integrating ideas of the research in the design of policies, conveying these ideas to the policymakers inside and outside the fund and managing all research done at IMF.
• The Chief Economist is part of the senior leadership team of the IMF and directly advises the Managing Director.
• The Chief Economist also leads about a hundred PhD economists in the Research Department.

Gita Gopinath

Gita Gopinath is an Indian-American Economist. Prior to her present role as the Chief Economist of IMF, she was serving as the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University.
Born in Mysore, she holds a B.A. degree from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi (1992), Masters in economics from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (1994). She also completed her M.A. at the University of Washington (1996). In 2001, she completed her PhD at Princeton University.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2019