Michael Gavin is Lead Research Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, where he is responsible for research and policy analysis of macroeconomics developments in Latin America. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a specialization in international monetary and financial economics. Prior to joining the Bank, he was Associate Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He has also worked in the International Finance Division of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and has been Visiting Scholar with, or Consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Board, the World Bank, and the Bank of Jamaica. He has served as Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna) and the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education (Prague).

His publications cover a variety of theoretical and policy topics, including exchange-rate determination, optimal strategies for economic reform, the role of capital markets in privatization policy and analyses of economic adjustment in Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria and Tanzania. Current research interests include determinants of macroeconomic volatility in developing economies, fiscal policy in Latin America and the implications of financial fragility for monetary policy and choice of exchange-rate regime.