Who is Gita Gopinath?

Gita Gopinath, at the International Monetary Fund, is the Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department. Currently, she is on leave of public service from Harvard University‘s Economics department where she is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics.

Gopinath’s research on International Finance and Macroeconomics has been published in many top economics journals. She has also written several research articles on exchange rates, trade and investment, international financial crises, monetary policy, debt, and emerging market crises.

Gita is also the co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics. She was earlier the co-editor of the American Economic Review and managing editor of the Review of Economic Studies.

Before this, she had also previously served as the co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Along with this, she is also a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

During the period of 2016-18, she served as the Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala state in India. For India’s Ministry of Finance, she served as a member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group on G-20 Matters.

She is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society, and recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington.

Foreign Policy named her one of the Top Global Thinkers in 2019. Before that in 2014, she was named one of the top 25 economists under 45 by the IMF. And three years prior to that, she was chosen as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum.

India has also awarded her with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honour conferred on overseas Indians.

Before starting at Harvard University in 2005, she served as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Gita Gopinath was born in India and is both an Overseas Citizen of India and a US citizen.

She received her Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 2001. Before that, she did her graduation from Lady Shri Ram College and a Master’s from the Delhi School of Economics and University of Washington.