IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath to return to Harvard

Washington DC: International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday that its chief economist Gita Gopinath would return to Harvard University in January after her public service leave of absence from the university ends, Reuters reported.

Gopinath joined IMF in October 2018 and led a new IMF analytical research on Covid-19 pandemic and vaccinating targets and climate change mitigation. She was IMF's first female chief economist.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva lauded Gopinath's impact on IMF's work as "tremendous". Georgieva said in a statement that Gita won the respect and admiration of colleagues in the Research Department, across IMF and throughout the membership for leading analytically rigorous work and policy-relevant projects with high impact and influence.

Gopinath's 50-million-dollar proposal to end the pandemic by vaccinating at least 40 per cent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 won great acclaim. The proposal was endorsed later by World Bank, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Trade Organisation.

Gopinath will remain at the IMF to oversee the release of its next World Economic Outlook forecasts in January, a source said.

However, the source told Reuters that Gopinath's departure from IMF has nothing to do with the ethics scandal that raised questions about Georgieva's future as the IMF's leader.