Eswar Prasad

Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and professor of economics at Cornell University. He is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Trade and Economics, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a former head of the IMF’s China Division.

Prasad’s latest book is “The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance” (Harvard University Press, September 2021). He is also the author of “Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi” (Oxford, 2016), and “The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance” (Princeton, 2014). His extensive publication record includes articles in numerous collected volumes as well as top academic journals such as the American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, the Economic Journal, International Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Monetary Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics. He has co-authored and edited numerous books and monographs, including on financial regulation and on China and India.

Prasad has testified before the Senate Finance Committee, the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and his research on China has been cited in the U.S. Congressional Record. He is the creator of the Brookings-Financial Times world index (TIGER: Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery; www.ft.com/tiger).

Many of his research papers and quotes from his speeches have been cited extensively in prominent media outlets such as the Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today. His op-ed articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He has made frequent appearances on BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, NBC, NPR, PBS, Reuters, and other radio and television channels.

Prasad is also a research fellow at IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn). He has served as the co-editor of the journal IMF Staff Papers, was on the editorial board of Finance & Development, and was the founding editor of the quarterly IMF Research Bulletin.