Spring Meetings

Viral Acharya
C.V. Starr Professor of Economics, NYU Stern

Viral V. Acharya is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern). He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Corporate Finance, a Research Affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). Viral was a Resident Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Sep 2022-Jan 2023) and a Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during 23rd January 2017 to 23rd July 2019 in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, Financial Stability, and Research.

Viral’s primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation, and its genesis in government- and policy-induced distortions, an inquiry that also examines the interaction of credit and liquidity risks, their agency-theoretic foundations, and their general equilibrium consequences. In recent work, he has also explored the impact of pandemic and climate-changed related risks. Viral received the Alexandre Lamfalussy Senior Research Fellowship of the Bank for International Settlements in 2017, the inaugural Banque de France – Toulouse School of Economics Junior Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance in 2011, and the Senior Houblon-Normal Research Fellowship at the Bank of England in Summer 2008. He has been a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher, 2020-22, and his articles have won several best paper prizes at journals and conferences.

Viral is currently an editor of the Journal of Law, Finance and Accounting (2014-16, 2020-), a member of the Editorial Committee of the Annual Review of Financial Economics (2022-), and a Board member of the American Finance Association (2024-) and Financial Intermediation Research Society (2023-). He was earlier an editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation (2009-12), associate editor of the Journal of Finance (2011-14), and a Director of the Western Finance Association (2012-2015). He is presently a Scientific Advisor to the Sveriges Riksbank since February 2024, a member of the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee (CFRAC) of the Financial Stability Oversight Council for 2023-26, an invited member of the Bellagio Group of academics and policy-makers from central banks and finance ministries since 2021, and a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable (FAR) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2020. He is or has been an Academic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York and Philadelphia, and the Board of Governors, and has provided Academic Expert service to the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Viral completed Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai in 1995 and Ph.D. in Finance from NYU-Stern in 2001

Sarah Breeden
Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, Bank of England

Sarah Breeden became Deputy Governor for Financial Stability on 1 November 2023. She is a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Policy Committee, Prudential Regulation Committee and the Bank’s Court of Directors.

She has specific responsibility within the Bank for financial stability, the supervision of financial market infrastructures, international issues, central bank digital currency and fintech.

Sarah also has responsibility at Deputy Governor level for the Bank’s work on the monetary and financial stability risks from climate change, and chairs the Financial Stability Board’s working group on climate vulnerabilities.

Sarah joined the Bank in 1991. Prior to her current role, Sarah was the Executive Director for Financial Stability Strategy and Risk and a member of the Financial Policy Committee (2021-2023). Previously, she was the Executive Director for UK Deposit Takers Supervision (2019-2021), responsible for the supervision of the UK’s banks, building societies and credit unions, and Executive Director for International Banks Supervision (2015-2021), responsible for supervision of the UK operations of international banks. Before that, Sarah held a variety of roles, including leading the design and risk management of financial market operations undertaken by the Bank during the financial crisis, and then leading the Bank’s work to support the transition of prudential regulation of banks and insurers from the Financial Services Authority to the Bank.

Sarah has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and an MSc in Finance from the London Business School.

She is a trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation.

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas
Economic Counsellor and Director of Research, IMF

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas is the Economic Counsellor and the Director of Research of the IMF. He is on leave from the University of California at Berkeley where he is the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management in the Department of Economics and at the Haas School of Business. Professor Gourinchas was the editor-in-chief of the IMF Economic Review from its creation in 2009 to 2016, the managing editor of the Journal of International Economics between 2017 and 2019, and a co-editor of the American Economic Review between 2019 and 2022. He is on-leave from the National Bureau of Economic Research where he was director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics program, a Research Fellow with the Center for Economic Policy Research CEPR (London) and a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Professor Gourinchas' main research interests are in international macroeconomics and finance. His recent research focuses on the scarcity of global safe assets, global imbalances and currency wars; on the International Monetary System and the role of the U.S. dollar; on the Dominant Currency Paradigm; on the determinants of capital flows to and from developing countries; on international portfolios; on the global financial crisis and on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on business failures. Professor Gourinchas is the laureate of the 2007 Bernácer Prize for best European economist working in macroeconomics and finance under the age of 40, and of the 2008 Prix du Meilleur Jeune Economiste for best French economist under the age of 40. In 2012-2013, Professor Gourinchas was a member of the French Council of Economic Advisors to the Prime Minister.

He attended Ecole Polytechnique and received his PhD in Economics in 1996 from MIT. He taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Princeton University before joining UC Berkeley department of economics in 2003. He grew up in Montpellier, France.

Chang Yong Rhee
Governor, Bank of Korea

Education

Feb. 1984 Seoul National University, Korea (B.A. in Economics)

Jun. 1989 Harvard University, U.S.A. (Ph.D. in Economics)

Professional Experience

Sep. 1989 Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Rochester

Sep. 1992 Visiting Fellow, The World Bank

Feb. 1994 Assistant Professor of Economics, Seoul National University

Feb. 1998 Associate Professor of Economics. Secoul National University

Mar. 2003 Professor of Economics, Seoul National University

Mar. 2008 Vice Chairman, Financial Services Commission Chariman, Securities and Futures Commission

Nov. 2009 Secretary General and Sherpa, Presidential Committee for the 2010 G-20 Seoul Summit

Mar. 2011 Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank

Feb. 2014 Director, Asian and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund

Apr. 2022 Governor, Bank of Korea