Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer Named World Bank Chief Economist
Michael Kremer, a professor at the University of Chicago and Nobel laureate, will take over as the World Bank Group’s chief economist on October 1. He will lead the organization’s research and replace Indermit Gill, who retired last month. Kremer, 61, was awarded the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (Nobel Prize in economics) jointly with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. He is the first chief economist to join with a Nobel; other Nobel laureates, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer, received the honour after serving as the bank’s chief economist. Kremer, holding a PhD from Harvard University, has previously taught economics at Harvard and is currently a professor at the University of Chicago, where he also directs the Development Innovation Lab. He has served as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kremer is recognised for employing rigorous research to devise innovative solutions to real-world challenges, frequently establishing programs that have assisted small farmers and provided millions with access to vaccines and school health initiatives. His research has concentrated on innovation across various sectors, including education, healthcare, water, finance, and agriculture, particularly within developing nations. His research on deworming schoolchildren demonstrated a significant reduction in absenteeism, leading governments in Africa and South Asia to administer two billion treatments since 2014. He has also worked on artificial intelligence-based agricultural weather forecasting and cofounded Precision Development, which utilises digital technology to enhance productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers.
In 2010, Kremer co-founded Development Innovation Ventures, a fund administered by the US Agency for International Development, which was discontinued by US President Donald Trump following his return to the White House last year. He and his wife, British economist Rachel Glennerster, also pioneered the use of Advance Market Commitments, which are binding contracts established by donors to incentivise pharmaceutical companies to research, develop, and produce drugs for low-income countries. It facilitated the advancement of a vaccine targeting the primary etiological agent of pneumonia. Kremer was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1997 and holds membership in the National Academy of Sciences, in addition to being a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the early 2000s, he introduced a framework designed to thwart dictators from plundering their nations and burdening future generations with illegitimate or “odious” debt.
In a 2024 keynote speech at a World Bank event titled “The Great Incoherence: Growth and Human Development in an Era of Stagnation”, Kremer called for reforms to help countries meet ambitious development goals, including funding innovative pilot projects and incentivising research on new technologies. “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 following his appointment. “The challenges ahead are enormous, including creating jobs at scale, unlocking the private capital needed to fund development, and ensuring people have the health, education, and other services they need to thrive,” he said.
