Raghuram G. Rajan
Economic Counsellor and Director, Research Department International Monetary Fund
Washington, D.C., USA
Advisor for the International Year of Microcredit 2005

“People, poor and rich, need reliable financing so that their ideas can be brought together with assets to generate long-run sustainable growth."

The two key ingredients to a well-functioning market economy are competition and access, competition so that performance keeps improving and access so that everyone has a chance to participate and nobody's talents are wasted. In the coming Year of Microcredit, we will focus on access to finance, for after all, people, poor and rich, need reliable financing so that their ideas can be brought together with assets to generate long-run sustainable growth.”

He is the co-author of a book called Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists (Crown Business, New York, 2003). He is now Economic Counsellor and Director of the IMF's Research Department. He is also a director at the International School of Business, Hyderabad and an adviser to the regulator of the country's capital markets, the Securities and Exchange Board of India. He earned his electrical engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1985 and pursued MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

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