Deputy governor in charge of monetary policy at the Reserve Bank of India since 2013, Urjit Patel will take over charge of the central bank, replacing Raghuram Rajan, the outgoing governor, who returns to the United States.
Patel holds a bachelor’s degree from the London School of Economics, a master of philosophy from Oxford and a doctorate in economics from Yale University. He worked at the IMF and the Boston Consulting Group, and has also been a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. He has several publications in the areas of Indian macroeconomics, monetary policy, public finance, the Indian financial sector, international trade, and regulatory economics.
Dr. Patel’s appointment signals continuity to his predecessor’s policies. He believes in aggressively fighting inflation and until recently maintained that liquidity should be in deficit mode in order to meet the central bank’s inflation goals, reports the U.S.-India Business Council.
