Olivier Blanchard

Olivier Blanchard served as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2008 to 2015, a period that included the global financial crisis and European sovereign debt crisis. His co-authored IMF research famously showed that fiscal multipliers were much larger than previously assumed — meaning fiscal austerity had much larger negative effects on GDP than the IMF had forecast — which was a significant admission that influenced the debate on European austerity policies. After leaving the IMF, he continued as a professor at MIT (before emeritus) and became a senior fellow at PIIE. He has been a leading voice arguing that with interest rates below economic growth rates, debt accumulation is more sustainable than traditional analysis suggested, influencing the shift in macro policy thinking about deficit spending.