Kaushik Basu

Kaushik Basu was born on 9 January 1952. He is an Indian economist who was chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016.

He was born in Kolkata, India, where he attended St. Xavier’s Collegiate School. In an autobiographical essay, he noted that after finishing school in 1969 he was caught in a dilemma. His father wanted him to study physics. But those were revolutionary times and he wanted to study nothing. They settled on economics as a halfway compromise between physics and nothing.

On 5 September 2012, he was appointed Chief Economist at the World Bank. He created Dui-doku, a competitive two-player version of Sudoku.

He currently teaches at Cornell University, where he has a joint appointment as an economics professor in the Department of Economics and the SC Johnson College of Business.