Gita Gopinath
Gita Gopinath is an Indian – American economist who is currently serving as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 21 January, 2022. From 2019 to 2022 she was the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund.
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Personal Information
Real Name | Gita Gopinath |
Profession | Economist |
Popular For | First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) |
Date Of Birth | 8 December , 1971 |
Age | 50 years |
Birthplace | Kolkata , India |
Current Address | United States |
Nationality | Indian-American |
Early life and education
Gita Gopinath was born on 8 December 1971 in Kolkata , India in a Malayali family.
Gopinath studied at Nirmala Convent School in Mysore. She received a B.A. degree from Lady Shri Ram College for Women of the University of Delhi in 1992 and an M.A. degree in economics from Delhi School of Economics, also of the University of Delhi, in 1994. She further completed an M.A. degree at the University of Washington in 1996. She earned her Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 2001. She was awarded the Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Research Award while doing her doctoral research at Princeton.
Personal Life
Gopinath is the younger of two daughters of T.V. Gopinath and V.C. Vijayalakshmi. Her family is related to the late A. K. Gopalan.
She is a naturalized American Citizen and an Overseas Citizen of India.[36] She is married to Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal, her classmate from the Delhi School of Economics. She is also a mother of one child.
Career
Gopinath had a two decade long career as an academic including at the economics department of Harvard University where she was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics (2005-22) and earlier as an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2001-05). She is also a co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has earlier worked as the Honorary Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala.
Gopinath was appointed as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund in October 2018 by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. In an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, she named the worldwide recession of 2020 as “The Great Lockdown.” In December 2021, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva appointed her the First Managing Director of the IMF, which is the organization’s number 2 position.
Honors
In 2021, Financial Times named Gopinath among the ‘25 most influential women of the year’ and was recognized by the John Kenneth Galbraith Award, and the Carnegie Corporation named her among ‘Great (American) Immigrants’.
Foreign Policy named her one of the Top Global Thinkers in 2019. In 2017, she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington. She was named one of the top 25 economists under 45 by the International Monetary Fund in 2014 and was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011. In 2019, she was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India.
Facts about Gita Gopinath
- The India-born Gita Gopinath was appointed as the first woman International Monetary Fund`s chief economist in 2018.
- Gita Gopinath completed her Bachelor`s in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi. Later, she finished her Masters in Economics from Delhi School of Economics (1992-94), and University of Washington (1994-96). She did her Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University (1996-2001).
- Gita, 49, also serves as the Director of Research Department and Economic Counselor at IMF. She is also a John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. However, she is currently on a leave of public service.
- In 2019, she was awarded Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honor for a person of Indian origin, by the Indian President- Ram Nath Kovind.
- She is also the co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics with former IMF economic counselor Kenneth Rogoff.
- After former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, Gita Gopinath is the second Indian who shall be holding the title of IMF`s chief economist.
- She has also written around 40 research articles on topics such as international financial crises, trade & investment, exchange rates, international financial crises, and monetary policy.
- After the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Gita is the third woman and the second Indian to become a permanent member of the Harvard economics department.