
Shekhar Aiyar
Shekhar Aiyar was a Non-resident Fellow at Bruegel until October 2024. He is a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Visiting Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
Until August 2023 he held a number of senior positions in the International Monetary Fund, most recently as Division Chief in the Research Department, where he helped coordinate the Fund’s monitoring of the global economy and liaised with international groups such as the G-20 and G-7. Previously he served as Mission Chief for Germany and Head of the Euro Area Division. From 2009-2011 he was seconded to the Bank of England, where he studied cross-border bank flows and helped set up the macro-prudential regime.
His research interests encompass open economy macroeconomics, international finance, growth empirics and test cricket. Recent work has focused on the likelihood and possible consequences of geo-economic fragmentation. He has published in the Journal of Financial Economics, American Economic Review, European Economic Review, IMF Economic Review, Journal of Economic Growth, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and Economic Policy. He holds an MA in Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.
Featured work

The cost of protectionism will be paid by the world’s poorest

Global inequality is narrowing — and that is cause for celebration
Westerners worried about growing disparities at home shouldn’t overlook the transformative effect of liberalisation in India and China

Productivity spillovers from FDI: A firm-level cross-country analysis
This paper provides cross-country firm-level evidence on productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment

Income inequality and the liberal economic order: a not entirely Western perspective
This essay argues that global welfare gains should be safeguarded and built on, not undermined by a blinkered perception of liberalism.

The impact of geoeconomic fragmentation on Foreign Direct Investment
To what extent is geoeconomic fragmentation translating into a fragmentation of FDI?
Role of national structural reforms in enhancing resilience in the Euro Area
At this event Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist at the IMF will discuss the role of national structural reforms in enhancing resilience in the Euro Area.