Raghuram Rajan will quit IMF as Chicago University refuses leave

WASHINGTON: Raghuram G Rajan, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, has resigned.

Rajan was appointed with much media fanfare in July 2003 to the post of IMF’s Economic Counselor and Director of Research.

He has decided to get back to his teaching job at the University of Chicago, after his current leave of absence expires at the end of the year. He is the Joseph L Gidwitz professor of finance at the University of Chicago. An IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad graduate, Rajan completed his Ph D from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Rajan said: “When I took this job, I promised the executive board that I had every intent of staying the full three years that department directors are appointed for. That I have done. Recently, the managing director asked me if I would stay on for a second term. I checked with the University of Chicago, but they indicated their inability to extend my leave.” “It is with regret, therefore, that I have told the managing director that I would like to return to the University of Chicago by early next year.”

However, Rajan will stay on at the IMF through the end of the year to complete his current project on integrating financial sector analysis into the IMF’s Article IV work. IMF’s managing director Rodrigo de Rato, whom Rajan reports to, said he regrets Rajan’s decision to quit the IMF.

He said: “He has held the important position of economic counselor during a period when the Fund has been going through a re-orientation of its direction and an intensive review of its core functions. Raghu has also been an articulate and influential voice of the Fund on the need to seize the opportunities presented by globalisation while pointing to the emerging risks stemming from global imbalances and rising oil prices. His departure is a great personal loss for me, and I know he will be missed by his many friends and colleagues at the Fund.”