World Bank appoints Greek academic as its new chief economist

SManalysis

Kathimerini

Born and raised in Athens, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg has been appointed the new chief economist of the World Bank, with effect from November.

The 55-year-old academic has since 2001 been a professor of economics at Yale University. She holds a PhD from Stanford and has also taught at Princeton and Columbia.

The Greek professor entered the University of Athens but left Greece on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to study economics at the University of Freiburg, before completing her studies at Stanford on an Onassis Foundation scholarship.

The appointment of the Greek economist will likely have major significance in a period when international trade is being disputed, as the economics of developing countries and the impact of commerce on inequality, productivity, innovation and royalties protection have featured prominently in Koujianou Goldberg’s research work.

The World Bank notes on its website that Koujianou Goldberg is expected to strengthen the lender’s connection to academic research and help shape a vision of how to achieve the Bank Group’s goals of sustainable growth, shared prosperity, and a world free of extreme poverty.