WB chief economist Penny Goldberg to leave in March
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World Bank (WB) chief economist Penny Goldberg plans to step down on March 1 to return to her job as an economics professor at Yale University.
Aart Kraay, the director of research in the Development Research Group, will become acting chief economist as the bank begins the search for a permanent successor, President David Malpass wrote in an e-mail to staff that was obtained by Bloomberg News.
Goldberg, an applied microeconomist known for her work on trade and development, joined the World Bank in November 2018, Malpass said. She was the first woman editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review, and Malpass also praised her as “a leading intellectual on complex issues facing developing countries” and her leadership on the bank’s first trade-focused development report since the late 1980s.
“I valued Penny’s intellectual rigor and curiosity,” Malpass said. “In particular, I appreciated Penny’s passion for building the institution’s connection to state-of-the-art academic research and her commitment to drawing young talented economists to the Bank, an effort that will continue beyond her departure.”
The World Bank last month said that global economic growth is likely to pick up slowly this year and next amid the easing of trade tensions, though Malpass warned on Tuesday that the organization will need to lower some forecasts “for at least the first part of 2020,” in part due to the coronavirus outbreak in China and its impact on supply chains. The bank in January forecast the expansion to accelerate marginally to 2.5% this year from a 2.4% pace in 2019.
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