World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday announced the appointment of Kaushik Basu as the institution’s new Chief Economist and Senior Vice President.
Basu, an Indian national, most recently served as Chief Economic Adviser of the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, while on leave from his position as Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University.
He also served as Chairman of Cornell’s Department of Economics and Director of Cornell’s Centre for Analytic Economics and headed the Programme on Comparative Economic Development.
Having worked in a Ministry of Finance, in addition to his impressive academic achievements, Basu is uniquely suited to help the Bank offer evidence-based solutions and advice to client countries and provide innovative excellence in leading the World Bank’s development research, said Kim.
Basu brings first-hand experience from a developing country and will be a terrific asset to the institution, Kim said.
Basu, who holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, founded the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics in 1992 and is a founding member of the Madras School of Economics.
He has held visiting professorial positions at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, the London School of Economics, and M.I.T.
Basu has published widely and his contributions to the field span development economics, welfare economics, industrial organisation and public economics.
His books include Analytical Development Economics (1997, MIT Press), Prelude to Political Economy: a Study of the Social and Political Foundations of Economics (2000, Oxford University Press), and Of People, Of Places: Sketches from an Economists Notebook (1994, Oxford University Press) and Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics (2011, Princeton University Press and Penguin).
Basu is a fellow of the Econometric Society and has been awarded India’s National Mahalanobis Memorial Award.
In May 2008, the president of India awarded Basu one of the country’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, for distinguished service of high order.