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Asli Demirgüç-Kunt

(Former) Chief Economist, Europe and Central Asia

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt is a former Chief Economist of the Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank, a position she held until August 2022, and currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Over her 30-year career in the World Bank, she also served as the Director of Research, Director of Development Policy, and the Chief Economist of the Finance and Private Sector Development Network, conducting research and advising on financial and private sector development issues. 

The author of over 100 publications, she has published widely in academic journals and is among the most-cited researchers in the world. Her research has focused on the links between financial development, firm performance, and economic development. Banking and financial crises, financial regulation, access to financial services and inclusion, as well as SME finance and entrepreneurship are among her areas of research. She has also created the Global Financial Development Report series and Global Findex financial inclusion database.  

She has been the President of the International Atlantic Economic Society (2013-14) and Director of the Western Economic Association (2015-18) and serves on the editorial boards of professional journals. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Ohio State University.

  • Selected Research

  • Global Findex Chapter 2 illustration of a person buying produce using cell phone

    Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database 2021

    Financial inclusion is a cornerstone of development, and since 2011, the Global Findex Database has been the definitive source of data on global access to financial services from payments to savings and borrowing. The 2021 edition, based on nationally representative surveys of over 125,000 adults in 123 economies during the COVID-19 pandemic, contains updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services and digital payments, and offers insights into the behaviors that enable financial resilience.
  • GFDR 2020 book and globe image

    Global Financial Development Report 2019 / 2020: Bank Regulation and Supervision a Decade after the Global Financial Crisis

    Over a decade has passed since the onset of the largest global economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis revealed major shortcomings in market discipline, regulation, and supervision. The Global Financial Development Report 2019/2020 provides new data and evidence on the regulatory remedies adopted to prevent future financial instability and sheds light on ongoing policy debates.
  • Financial Structure Database

    This dataset contains annual data between 1960 and 2016 for 109 indicators, capturing various aspects of financial institutions and markets. The compiled data permits the construction of financial structure indicators to measure whether, for example, a country's banks are larger, more active, and more efficient than its stock markets.
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