USGLC

Adriana Kugler is President Biden’s nominee for U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank.

Dr. Kugler is currently a professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Georgetown McCourt School, where she conducts research on policy relating to unemployment and immigration. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Previously, Dr. Kugler served as the Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Labor and as a Consultant of the World Bank.

Past statements on development, diplomacy, and U.S. global leadership:

On Youth Unemployment: “Youth unemployment in Latin America is exceptionally high, as much as 50% among the poor. Vocational training may be the best chance to help unemployed young people at the bottom of the income distribution who have already left the formal education system.” (source)

On Economic Inequality: “Much of this increase in inequality is really driven by huge gains for those at the very top and losses for the middle class… if you look at the gains for example for those… in the top 1% of the distribution it’s very startling… Those in the top 1% of the income distribution used to get 10% of all the income in the economy, now they get 20%. And by contrast… the lowest 50% of the income distribution used to get about 20% before in the late 1970s and now they’re getting about 12%.” (source)

On Educational Attainment: “High population growth has long been considered a potential deterrent for economic growth and development. By contrast, human capital accumulation is considered one of the main determinants of income growth. At the household level, family size and human capital are also negatively correlated: a larger family has fewer resources to devote to each child’s education. That is, in making child rearing decisions, resource-constrained households may face a quantity-quality trade-off.” (source)

On Women in STEM: “Society keeps telling us that STEM fields are masculine fields, that we need to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, but that kind of sends a signal that it’s not a field for women, and it kind of works against keeping women in these fields. …The numerous government and other policy initiatives designed to get women interested in STEM fields may have the unintended effect of signaling to women an inherent lack of fit.” (source)

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