Stanley Fischer, Former Bank of Israel Governor and Former IMF and World Bank Official, Joins CFR as Distinguished Fellow

Stanley Fischer, former governor of the Bank of Israel and a former top official at both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, joins the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) this month as a distinguished fellow. Fischer, a CFR member since 1994, is based at the organization’s New York headquarters.

"Economics and geoeconomics are at the core of international relations. For this reason, the Council on Foreign Relations made a commitment some years ago to increase the quantity and quality of its work in this area, in the process building a roster of distinguished experts," said CFR President Richard N. Haass. "We are thrilled to welcome Stanley Fischer, who has built a sterling reputation in the worlds of academia, finance, and, most recently, as governor of Israel’s Central Bank, to CFR."

Fischer joins an illustrious roster of scholars and practitioners on economics and geoeconomics at CFR that includes former treasury secretaries Robert E. Rubin and Timothy F. Geithner, former Office of Management and Budget director Peter R. Orszag, CFR’s Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies Sebastian Mallaby, Director of International Economics Benn Steil, Senior Fellow for International Economics Jagdish N. Bhagwati, and Senior Fellow for International Economics Robert Kahn.

Under Fischer’s leadership as governor of the Bank of Israel, Israel’s economy grew consistently through most of 2008 and 2009 despite the global economic recession. From 2002 to 2005 Fischer was vice chairman of Citigroup.

Fischer served as first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001. He was chief economist at the World Bank from 1988 to 1990. Between 1973 and 1994 he taught economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Fischer received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the London School of Economics and his PhD from MIT. Prior to taking his position at MIT, Fischer held a faculty appointment at the University of Chicago. He has also held visiting positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

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