Raghuram Rajan; photo courtesy University of Chicago

The latest appointment of Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has been received with a good deal of fanfare. Did you know, he completed his PhD in the U.S., following degrees from IIT and IIM in India?

In 2005, Rajan became famous for his warnings on a potential financial system crash. And although he became quite unpopular with heavy-weight economists in the U.S. at the time, he was proved to be correct when the financial crash began to wreak havoc in 2007.

Rajan has a mammoth task ahead of him – curbing India’s double-digit inflation and strengthening the rupee – which is important for any budding student to keep an eye on, as it impacts the costs of going abroad to study.

Some of his views on Indian economic reform can be found here, in a speech he gave in 2012.

And below are some interesting Curriculum Vitae facts you might not have known about the RBI’s 23rd Governor.


Who: Raguram Rajan

Appointment: Reserve Bank of India, Governor – job to begin 6^th August 2013, for a 3-year term

Education:

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); PhD Management (1991)
• IIM Ahmedabad; MBA (1987)
• IIT Delhi; B.Tech (Electrical) (1985)

Highlights to date:

• Government of India, Chief Economic Advisor (since 2012)
• University of Chicago, Booth School of Business; Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance (since 2006)
• Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of India (2008-2012)
• Government of India Committee on Financial Sector Reforms, Chairman (2007-2008)
• IMF, Chief Economist (2003-2006)
• University of Chicago, Booth School of Business; Joseph L. Gidwitz Professor of Finance (1997-2003); Professor of Finance (1995-1996)

Selected Research:

•  “The Future of the IMF and the World Bank”, American Economic Review 98(2) (May 2008), 110-115.
• “Has Finance Made the World Riskier?”, European Financial Management 12(4) (September 2006), 499-533.
• “India’s Pattern of Development: What Happened, What Follows?” (with Kalpana  Kochhar, Utsav Kumar, Arvind Subramanian, and Ioannis Tokatlidis), Journal of Monetary Economics 53 (February 2006), 981-1019.
• “Essays on Banking” PhD thesis, MIT (1991)

Selected Books:

• Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy (won the FT Business Book of the Year Award, 2010)
• Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists (co-authored with Luigi Zingales)

Selected Extra-Curricular:

• BDT Capital Partners LLC, Senior Advisor (until 2012)
• Booz & Co., Senior Advisor (until 2012)
• Bank Itaú-Unibanco, International Advisory Board Member (until 2012)
• Comptroller General of the United States, Advisory Council Member (former)
• FDIC Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, Member (former)
• Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Director (no renumeration)
• American Finance Association, President (2011)
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member (no renumeration)

Selected Awards:

• Infosys Prize for Social Science – Economics (2011)
• Infosys Prize for the Economic Sciences, 2011
• Global Indian of the Year Award, NASSCOM, 2011
• Bernhard Harms Prize, Kiel Institute for International Economics, 2010
• Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, 2010
• American Finance Association Fischer Black Prize (inaugural), 2003 – given every two years to the financial economist under age 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the theory and practice of finance.

Tags: Raghuram Rajan, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, RBI Governor