Greek Academic Appointed as World Bank’s New Chief Economist

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, Professor of Economics at Yale University, was appointed as World Bank Group Chief Economist this week.

“I’m thrilled that Penny Goldberg will bring her vast academic experience, intellectual rigor, and boundless curiosity to the World Bank Group,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.

“Penny has spent her career examining many of the most complex issues that affect developing countries, and she will help answer the most important – and difficult – questions of our time: how to help developing countries prepare for the economy of the future, and how to ensure equality of opportunity everywhere in the world.”

The 55-year-old academic, a Greek and US national, brings an impressive track record as a leading applied microeconomist, widely cited for her research on developing countries—including the effects of trade on inequality and firm productivity, profits and innovation, and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Koujianou Goldberg entered the University of Athens but left Greece on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to study economics at the University of Freiburg, before completing her studies at Stanford on an Onassis Foundation scholarship.

The Greek academic, the first woman appointed as editor of the American Economic Review, one of the most prestigious journals in Economics, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

She has won the 2003 Bodossaki Prize in Social Sciences, which is awarded to distinguished scholars of Greek nationality or decent Yale University says.