Appointment of Michael Kremer as World Bank Chief Economist
The World Bank Group announced that Nobel Prize‑winning economist Michael Kremer will assume the role of Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, effective 1 October 2026. The appointment was disclosed by World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.
Kremer presently serves as Director of the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, where he holds the title of University Professor. He earned his PhD in Economics from Harvard University and was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics jointly with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo for pioneering an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.
His research portfolio spans economic growth, technological change, and development economics, employing randomized controlled trials to generate actionable knowledge. Current research focuses on innovation in education, health, water, finance, and agriculture within developing nations.
Together with Rachel Glennerster, Kremer advocated for the use of Advance Market Commitments (AMCs) for vaccines and helped launch a US$1.5 billion AMC for a pneumococcal vaccine in partnership with Gavi and the World Bank Group. Vaccines procured through these AMCs have been delivered to 60 developing countries. His work on deworming has supported the scale‑up of 2 billion deworming treatments for children across Africa and South Asia since 2014.
Kremer is a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He co‑founded Precision Development, which applies digital technology to boost productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers, and co‑founded USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, which has invested in more than 300 innovations reaching over 200 million people.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor.