OLIVIER BLANCHARD is the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did his undergraduate work in France and received a PhD in economics from MIT in 1977. He taught at Harvard from 1977 to 1982 and has taught at MIT since 1983. He has frequently received the award for best teacher in the department of economics. He is currently on leave from MIT and serves as the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.

He has done research on many macroeconomic issues, including the effects of fiscal policy, the role of expectations, price rigidities, speculative bubbles, unemployment in Western Europe, transition in Eastern Europe, the role of labour market institutions and the various aspects of the current crisis. He has done work for many governments and many international organisations, including the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the EU Commission and the EBRD. He has published over 150 articles and edited or written over 20 books, including Lectures on Macroeconomics with Stanley Fischer.

He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past vice-president of the American Economic Association. He currently lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Noelle. He has three daughters, Marie, Serena and Giulia.