White House economic adviser Maurice Obstfeld was on 20 July 2015 appointed as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with effect from 8 September 2015. Obstfeld will succeed outgoing IMF economist Olivier Blanchard.
He will be responsible for handling the IMF’s huge, troubled rescue programs for Greece and Ukraine while keeping a close eye on the slowdown in the global economy.
About Maurice Obstfeld
- Maurice Obstfeld is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
- However, he was on leave from Berkeley since mid-2014 to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
- He is known around the globe for his work on international economics and is considered as one of the most influential macro-economists in the world.
- Obstfeld has written two influential textbooks on International Economics, one with Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.