The World Bank announced on Wednesday that Nobel laureate Michael Kremer, a professor at the University of Chicago, will be its next chief economist, succeeding Indermit Gill, who retired last month, Reuters reports, as cited by Agerpres.

Kremer, 61, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2019, jointly with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, for their experimental approach to reducing global poverty. Kremer previously taught economics at Harvard University.

He will take up the role of World Bank chief economist on 1 October, shortly before the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, this year.

Kremer is renowned for the rigorous use of research to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems, often creating programmes that have helped smallholder farmers and provided millions of people with access to vaccines and school health programmes.

“Michael has spent his career not only identifying what works in development, but also demonstrating it at scale – and that is exactly the kind of thinking we need. He is joining us at a time when the world needs bold solutions to its most urgent development challenges, including creating jobs that meet the aspirations of more than 1.2 billion young people who will reach working age over the next decade,” World Bank President Ajay Banga said in a statement.

Kremer is the first economist to join the World Bank after winning the Nobel Prize. Other winners, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer, received the distinction after serving as the World Bank’s chief economist.

“The World Bank Group has extraordinary research capacity to develop and test innovative solutions to development problems – and the operational reach to scale them up and improve people’s lives,” Kremer said in a press release.

Kremer is married to Rachel Glennerster, a British economist who worked for the UK Government and the International Monetary Fund before becoming president of the Center for Global Development in Washington in September 2024.
The pair joined Giving What We Can, an NGO whose more than 10,000 members have committed to donating 10% of their income to effective charitable organisations, when it was launched in 2009.

Kremer and Glennerster also pioneered the use of Advance Market Commitments, legally binding contracts entered into by donors to encourage pharmaceutical companies to research, develop and produce medicines for low-income countries, contributing to the development of a vaccine against the leading cause of pneumonia worldwide.

Kremer’s research on deworming schoolchildren showed a sharp drop in absenteeism, prompting governments in Africa and South Asia to provide 2 billion treatments since 2014. He has also worked on AI-based agricultural weather forecasting and co-founded Precision Development, which uses digital technology to improve the productivity and incomes of smallholder farmers.

source – AGERPRES