Jonathan Ostry

Jonathan D. Ostry is Professor of Economics, Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto (with affiliations to the Munk School and to the Department of Economics), a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research in London (UK), a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel in Brussels, and serves on the Global Risks Advisory Board of the World Economic Forum in Geneva. Professor Ostry comes to the University of Toronto from Georgetown University in Washington DC, where he held a faculty appointment as Professor of the Practice in the Department of Economics. Dr. Ostry served in senior roles for more than three decades at the International Monetary Fund, including as Deputy Director for Research and Acting Director for the Asia-Pacific region. Ostry received his PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago, and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He graduated from Queen’s University in Canada and went on to do a second undergraduate degree at Oxford University (Balliol College) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Professor Ostry’s recent academic and policy work has focused on the management of international capital flows; this work has been influential in bringing about a shift in the institutional position of the IMF on capital controls. Ostry has also published influential studies on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, where his work suggests that high income inequality and a failure to sustain economic growth may be two sides of the same coin. He has been involved in efforts to raise awareness of inequality issues at the global level over many years, including through his membership in the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils on new growth models and inclusive growth. Professor Ostry’s work has also focused on the issue of fiscal sustainability, and in particular on the role of a country’s track record of fiscal management in determining access to international capital markets. This work is used by the main credit rating agencies for their sovereign credit rating analysis.

 Professor Ostry is a highly cited economist in scholarly journals (ranked in the top 1 percent of economists worldwide over the past ten years, according to RePEc), and his writings have featured prominently in the financial press (the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Time, Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, NPR, and the BBC). Earlier in his career, Professor Ostry led the team at the IMF that produces its flagship publication, the World Economic Outlook, and was mission chief for a number of Asia-Pacific countries, including Australia and Japan. His recent books include Taming the Tide of Capital Flows (MIT Press, 2018) and Confronting Inequality: How Societies Can Choose Inclusive Growth (Columbia University Press, 2019).