World Bank Names Nobel Winner Michael Kremer as New Chief Economist
By Andrea Shalal
Michael Kremer's Appointment and Impact on Global Development
Background and Achievements
WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The World Bank on Wednesday named Nobel laureate and University of Chicago professor Michael Kremer as its next chief economist, succeeding Indermit Gill, who retired last month.
Kremer, 61, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2019 jointly with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. He previously taught economics at Harvard University.
He starts his new role on October 1, shortly before the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Bangkok, Thailand.
Innovative Research and Development Solutions
Kremer is known for using rigorous research to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems, often setting up programs that have helped small farmers and given millions of people access to vaccines and school health programs.
"Michael has spent his career not just identifying what works in development, but proving it at scale — and that is exactly the kind of thinking we need,” World Bank President Ajay Banga said in a statement.
"He joins 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 reaching working age in the coming decade."
Challenges Facing the World Bank
Kremer joins the bank as developing countries grapple with rising interest rates and higher energy prices in the wake of the U.S. war against Iran. Those challenges come on top of a 23% drop in official development assistance in 2025, the sharpest on record, with the U.S. responsible for the lion's share.
He is the first economist to come to the bank with a Nobel in hand. Others, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer, received the honor after their tenure as chief economist.
Kremer's Ongoing Research and Vision
Kremer currently serves the director of the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, where his research has been focused on innovation in education, health, water, finance, and agriculture in developing countries.
“The World Bank Group has tremendous 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 statement.
The world faced enormous challenges, but new technologies offered opportunities to boost growth, he said.
Keynote Speech and Policy Recommendations
In 2024, Kremer gave a keynote speech at a World Bank event titled "The Great Incoherence: Growth and Human Development in an Era of Stagnation."
In that speech, he called for reforms to help countries meet ambitious development goals, including by funding innovative pilot projects and incentivizing research on new technologies, themes stressed by Banga since he took office in 2023.
Personal Life and Collaborative Efforts
Kremer is the husband of Rachel Glennerster, a British economist who served work for the UK government and the International Monetary Fund before becoming president of the Center for Global Development in Washington in September 2024.
Both joined Giving What We Can, a nonprofit group whose 10,000-plus members pledge to give 10% of their income to effective charities, when it was first launched in 2009.
Entrepreneurial and Philanthropic Initiatives
In 2010, he co-founded Development Innovation Ventures, a fund administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was shut down by U.S. President Donald Trump shortly after he returned to the White House last year.
He and Glennerster also pioneered the use of Advance Market Commitments, binding contracts made by donors to encourage pharmaceutical companies to research, develop and produce drugs for low-income countries, aiding development of a vaccine against the main cause of pneumonia globally.
Research Contributions and Recognition
Kremer's research on de-worming school children 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 productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers.
Winner of a MacArthur "genius grant" in 1997, Kremer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the early 2000s, he also proposed a framework aimed at preventing dictators from looting their countries and saddling future citizens with illegitimate or "odious" debt.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Lincoln Feast.)
