Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Rajan served as IMF chief economist from 2003 to 2007 and famously presented a paper at the 2005 Jackson Hole Symposium warning that financial innovation had increased systemic risk — a warning largely dismissed at the time but later vindicated by the 2008 crisis. He became Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, stabilizing the rupee after a sharp depreciation and implementing structural reforms. He returned to the University of Chicago Booth School, where he continues to research banking, finance, and economic development. His book "Fault Lines" (2010), written after the financial crisis, extended his earlier analysis and argued that widening income inequality in the United States had created the political conditions for easy credit policies that contributed to the housing bubble. He co-authored "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" with Luigi Zingales, advocating for competitive markets as a foundation for broad prosperity. At the RBI, he earned a reputation for blunt speaking — criticizing competitive currency devaluation globally and warning about risks in the Indian banking system. His tenure saw a significant cleanup of the RBI's approach to non-performing assets in the Indian banking sector. He remains one of the most respected public intellectuals in international economics.