News Release No. 2000/241/S |
Contact: Caroline Anstey (202) 473-1800
Mobile: (202) 812-1622
Merrell Tuck (202) 473-9516
E-mail: mtuckprimdahl@worldbank.org |
WORLD BANK APPOINTS NEW CHIEF ECONOMIST
WASHINGTON, March 8, 2000Nicholas H. Stern has been appointed Senior Vice
President, Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank, President James D.
Wolfensohn announced today. Stern is leaving his positions as School Professor at the
London School of Economics (LSE) and Chairman of the London Economics consultancy and a
member of the International Advisory Council of IDEAglobal.com. He will start at the Bank
in late Spring. Stern replaces Joseph Stiglitz, who served as the Banks Chief Economist
from 1996 until last month.
We are delighted that Nick Stern will be joining the Bank and will be continuing to
push forward the development priorities and approach that we have been pursuing over the
past five years said Wolfensohn. I am confident that his strong
development economics and academic credentials and his experience at the human level of
development make him the right person for the job. His experience in advising numerous
governments and development institutions, his extensive exposure to and knowledge of
developing countries, and his outstanding research record are exemplary.
From 199499 Stern was Chief Economist and Special Counselor to the President at the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a period during which he was also a
Visiting Professor of Economics at the LSE. As the Sir John Hicks Professor of Economics
at the LSE from 198697, Stern published extensively on such issues as public finance
and enterprise reforms in China, the role of the state, ownership and taxation in
transitional economies, tax reform in India and Sri Lanka and institution-building in
Africa. For more than 25 years he has also been studying the changing economy and society
of Palanpur, a village in India. His teaching has primarily been in economic development
and growth, public policy, and microeconomics.
As Chief Economist of the Bank, Stern will also form and chair an Advisory Committee of
distinguished economists and policy experts, including Joseph Stiglitz and Nobel
Prize-winning development economist Amartya Sen. Under his leadership, this Committee will
help keep the Bank closely connected with the global economic communitys base in
knowledge and ideas.
Sterns career has included a professorship at Warwick University and a University
Lectureship at the University of Oxford, as well as policy advisory work in Africa, Asia,
Latin America, and Eastern Europe. He has served as a member of the UN High Level Group on
Development Strategy and Management of the Market Economy from 199497, and has served
on numerous Committees, including for OXFAM and for the Economic and Social Research
Council. He has held research and teaching positions at MIT; the University of China,
Beijing; the Ministry of Finance, Japan, the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and the Indian
Statistical Institute, Delhi. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and for seventeen years served as Editor of the
Journal of Public Economics.
Commenting on the appointment, Joseph Stiglitz, Chair of the Search Committee for a new
Chief Economist said, There was an enormously strong array of potential candidates
from around the world. The Search Committee was looking for someone with a high level of
academic distinction, a deep knowledge of development, and a real concern for the
development agenda especially as it affects the poorest. We believe we have found all
these qualities in Nick Stern.
Stern received his doctorate in 1972 from Oxford University and graduated with a First
Class Honors degree in mathematics from Cambridge University.
|