Press Release No. 22/1

IMF Managing Director Names Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas as IMF Economic Counsellor and Head of Research Department

January 10, 2022

Washington, DC: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced today her intention to appoint Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas as the Fund’s Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department (RES). He will succeed Gita Gopinath, who as previously announced, will join the Fund’s management team as First Deputy Managing Director.

“I am very pleased to announce that Pierre-Olivier will join us as the Fund’s next Chief Economist. He brings a stellar track record of scholarship and intellectual leadership in macroeconomic areas critical to our work—from global imbalances and capital flows to the stability of the international monetary and financial system, and more recently, to economic policies for the pandemic era,” Ms. Georgieva stated.

She described him as an outstanding macroeconomic scholar and practitioner with “his finger on the pulse of global economic issues.”

Mr. Gourinchas has had a long and distinguished career in academia. He joined UC Berkeley in 2003 and is currently the University of California at Berkeley’s Faculty Director of the Clausen Center for International Business & Policy, and the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management. Mr. Gourinchas was also assistant professor of economics at Princeton University from 1998 to 2003 and before that, he was assistant professor of economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Gourinchas is also Program Director of International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). From 2012 to 2013, he was a member of the French Council of Economic Advisors to the Prime Minister. In 2008 he was awarded the Prix du Meilleur Jeune Économiste for best French economist under age 40, and before that in 2007 won the Germán Bernácer Prize for best European Economist under age 40 working in macroeconomics and finance.

From 2009 to 2016, Mr. Gourinchas was IMF Visiting Scholar and the Editor-in-Chief of the IMF Economic Review, the Fund’s premier research journal. He showed a keen eye for cutting-edge analysis and helped increase the Review’s reach and influence among the broader economics community and policymakers. He has served as co-editor of the American Economic Review journal and also on the editorial boards of other leading economic publications including the Journal of International Economics.

“Pierre-Olivier is known for his agility in spotting emerging trends and for his expertise in analyzing today’s most pressing economic problems. Under his leadership, we can look forward to building on the Fund’s well-earned reputation for excellence in macroeconomics and research in service to our global membership,” Ms. Georgieva added.

Mr. Gourinchas, a French national, received a BA in Physics from École Polytechnique, an MA in Economics from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and an MA in Engineering from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. He received his PhD in 1996 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He begins his work as the IMF’s new Chief Economist on January 24, initially on a part-time basis as he concludes some prior teaching commitments, transitioning to full-time on April 1, 2022.