Raghuram Rajan to leave IMF for academic life early next year

WASHINGTON: Raghuram Rajan, the International Monetary Fund’s economic counsellor and director of its research department, plans to return to his professorship at the University of Chicago by early ’07.

A successor to Mr Rajan, who joined IMF in July ’03, will be named in due course, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) press release about Rajan notifying IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato of his intention to go back to his old job when his leave ends.

Mr Rajan an electrical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, who earned his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his PhD from MIT, taught at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago before taking up the IMF job.

He returns to Chicago as the Joseph L Gidwitz professor of finance. His research is broadly on the role of institutions, especially financial institutions, in fostering economic development. In ’03, Mr Rajan was awarded the inaugural Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association for contributions to finance by an economist under 40. During his tenure at the Fund, it has undertaken a complete review of its medium-term strategy, a process to which the research department has contributed substantially.

Mr Rajan said in his letter: “Research has also worked on bringing modern modelling techniques and techniques of exchange rate assessment to bear on our Article IV discussions with member countries. We have expanded work on finance, aid and development, the political economy of reforms, and reform of the IMF.”

In cooperation with the Asia and Pacific department, the research department has also analysed the growth and integration of China and India into the world economy, and has put the Fund in the forefront of policy analysis and discussion on these two countries, he said.