Economist Indermit Gill named new director of Center for International Development

Economist Indermit Gill will become the new director of the Duke Center for International Development at the Sanford School of Public Policy Oct. 1.

Gill currently works as the director for development policy in the Office of the Chief Economist at the World Bank in Washington. He will succeed Jonathan Ablels, who has served as interim director since June 2015, and Francis Lethem, visiting professor of the practice in Sanford, who directed the center from 2006 to 2015.

“Gill has already begun to establish connections with potential colleagues around Duke and has had discussions with many of us about exciting possibilities for the future,” Sanford School Dean Kelly Brownell said in a Duke Today release. “He is a highly talented, collaborative and effective leader, and will add a great deal to the Sanford and Duke communities.”

At the World Bank, Gill served as chief economist for Europe and Central Asia as well as staff director for the 2009 world development report on economic geography. In addition, he was the lead economist for human development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

His work includes the concept of the “middle income trap,” which describes how developing countries cease to grow after they reach a certain level of income.

Gill has taught at Georgetown University, the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Chicago. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.