IMF Appoints Gourinchas as Its New Chief Economist

(Bloomberg) -- The International Monetary Fund appointed Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas to succeed Gita Gopinath as its chief economist. 

Gourinchas, who is currently the University of California at Berkeley’s faculty director of the Clausen Center for International Business & Policy, starts his new position on Jan. 24 part time, transitioning to full time on April 1, the Washington-based fund said in an emailed statement Monday. 

The economist, a French national who is also program director of international finance and macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, was an IMF visiting scholar and the editor-in-chief of the IMF Economic Review from 2009 to 2016. He holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Gopinath, the first woman to serve as the IMF’s chief economist, is set to take over from Geoffrey Okamoto as the institution’s first deputy managing director on Jan. 21. The move, announced on Dec. 2, came as a surprise because Gopinath had said in October she planned to rejoin Harvard University in January to retain her tenured facility post after three years of public service.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.