The International Monetary Fund has appointed eminent scholar Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas as chief economist, succeeding Gita Gopinath.

Mr. Gourinchas, who is currently the faculty director of the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, takes up his new role on January 24 on a part-time basis.

He will switch to full-time on April 1, the Washington-based fund announced on Monday.

Mr. Gourinchas “presents an exceptional track record of scholarship and intellectual leadership in macroeconomic areas critical to our work – from global imbalances and capital flows to the stability of the international monetary and financial system, and more recently, to economic policies in the era of the pandemic, ”said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

The appointment comes as the world continues to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the recent increase in the number of infections caused by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The global economy is expected to grow 4.9% this year, the IMF said in October.

“Under his leadership, we can look forward to building on the well-deserved reputation of the fund of excellence in macroeconomics and research serving our global members,” said Ms. Georgieva.

Mr. Gourinchas, a French national, was also Assistant Professor of Economics at Princeton University from 1998 to 2003. Prior to that, he was Assistant Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

He also worked as an editor at IMF Economic Review, the fund’s premier research journal.

Last month, the IMF chose Mrs Gopinath become the second official of the fund. She succeeds the departure of first Deputy Managing Director Geoffrey Okamoto later in January.

Update: January 11, 2022 6:46 am