Raghuram Rajan Speaker Profile

Economic advisor to the Prime Minister of India, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Raghuram Rajan is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Dr. Rajan is also currently an economic advisor to the Prime Minister of India. Prior to resuming teaching in 2007, Dr. Rajan was the Economic Counselor and Director of Research (in plain English, the Chief Economist) at the International Monetary Fund (from 2003).
Since then, he has chaired the Indian government’s Committee on Financial Sector Reforms, which submitted its report in September 2008.

Dr. Rajan’s research interests are in banking, corporate finance, and economic development, especially the role finance plays in it. His papers have been published in all the top economics and finance journals, and he has served on the editorial board of the American Economic Review and the Journal of Finance. He has also written a book with Luigi Zingales entitled Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists. He is currently at work on a book entitled Fault Lines: How Hidden Cracks Still Threaten the World Economy.

Dr. Rajan is a senior advisor to Booz and Co, on the academic advisory board of Moodys, and on the international advisory board of Bank Itau-Unibanco. He is a director of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and on the Comptroller General of the United State’s Advisory Council. Dr. Rajan is the current Vice President of the American Finance Association and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2003, the American Finance Association awarded Dr. Rajan the inaugural Fischer Black Prize, given every two years to the financial economist under age 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the theory and practice of finance.