Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has appointed Erik Berglof as its first chief economist. He is tasked with setting the vision and strategy for the bank’s Economics Department and leading the planning, implementation and supervision of a work plan in support of its mandate to foster sustainable economic development by investing in an inclusive and sustainable Asia, AIIB said in a statement.
Prior to joining AIIB, Berglof was director of the Institute of Global Affairs at London School of Economics, where he launched the LSE Global Policy Lab engaging advanced and emerging economies on research-based policy design and implementation.
From 2006 to 2015, Berglof served as chief economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. During his tenure, he helped create and co-led the Vienna Initiative, a European crisis response credited with mitigating the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis.
A Swede, Berglof received his Ph.D. from the Stockholm School of Economics. From 1996 to 2006, he was director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics at the School of Economics. He has been a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution since 2006. He served as a professor at the London School of Economics and Stockholm School of Economics, and an assistant professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In addition, he has held visiting positions at Harvard University, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He has served on several prominent international advisory groups, including the 2019 High-Level Wise Persons Group on European Development Finance Architecture, an eight-person group with a mandate to assess the European development finance architecture and propose options for European policymakers. In 2017-2018, he served as Deputy Secretary of the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, which was involved in the review of the system of international financial institutions.
The AIIB is a multilateral development bank with a mission to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia. Headquartered in Beijing, it began operations in January 2016 and now has 103 members worldwide.
