World Bank taps Nobel laureate Michael Kremer as chief economist

The World Bank has appointed Nobel laureate Michael Kremer as its next chief economist, putting the University of Chicago professor in charge of the institution's research agenda as developing economies confront mounting strain.

Kremer, 61, succeeds Indermit Gill, who retired last month, and begins the role on October 1 — just ahead of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's annual meetings in Bangkok, Thailand.

He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee for pioneering an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Before joining the University of Chicago, he taught economics at Harvard University.

World Bank President Ajay Banga said Kremer's career had been defined by demonstrating what works in development and proving it at scale. Banga added that the appointment comes as the world seeks bold answers to urgent development challenges, including the need to create jobs for more than 1.2 billion young people who will reach working age over the coming decade.

Kremer currently directs the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, where his work centres on innovation in education, health, water, finance and agriculture across developing countries. He is the first economist to arrive at the bank already holding a Nobel; predecessors such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer received the honour after their tenures as chief economist.

His research has produced tangible results. Studies on de-worming schoolchildren showed a sharp fall in absenteeism, prompting governments in Africa and South Asia to deliver 2 billion treatments since 2014. He has also worked on AI-based agricultural weather forecasting and co-founded Precision Development, which uses digital tools to lift productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers.

With Rachel Glennerster, his wife and a British economist who became president of the Center for Global Development in September 2024, Kremer championed Advance Market Commitments — binding donor contracts designed to spur pharmaceutical research for low-income countries. The mechanism aided development of a vaccine against the leading global cause of pneumonia. In 2010 he co-founded Development Innovation Ventures, a fund run by the U.S. Agency for International Development that was shut down after President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.

Kremer said the World Bank Group possesses strong research capacity to devise and test innovative development solutions, along with the operational reach to scale them up. He noted that while the world faces enormous challenges, new technologies offer opportunities to accelerate growth.

At a 2024 World Bank event titled "The Great Incoherence: Growth and Human Development in an Era of Stagnation," he urged reforms to help countries meet ambitious development goals, including funding innovative pilot projects and incentivising research into new technologies — themes Banga has emphasised since taking office in 2023.

His arrival comes as developing nations contend with rising interest rates and higher energy prices following the U.S. war against Iran, compounded by a 23% fall in official development assistance in 2025, the steepest decline on record, with the United States accounting for most of the drop.

A recipient 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 to prevent dictators from looting their countries and leaving future citizens with illegitimate or "odious" debt.