Divya Kirti
Economist
Research Department
International Monetary Fund
dkirti (at) imf.org
Biography
Divya Kirti is an Economist in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. Previously, he worked in the Middle East and Central Asia Department. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. His research interests include financial intermediation, corporate finance, and finance and innovation. His work has been published in leading journals including the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Intermediation and the Journal of Banking & Finance, and covered by media outlets such as the New York Times and Bloomberg.
The views expressed here are personal and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management.
Journal Articles
Lending standards and output growth. 2025, Journal of Financial Stability, Vol. 76, 101351.
Coverage: [NY Times], [IMF GFSR April 2018 Chapter 2]
What Private Equity Does Differently: Evidence from Life Insurance (with Natasha Sarin). 2024, Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp. 201–230.
Coverage: [NY Times], [Bloomberg], [BIS Quarterly Review September 2024]
When gambling for resurrection is too risky, 2024. Journal of Banking & Finance, Vol. 162, 107125.
What are reference rates for?, 2022. Journal of Banking & Finance, Vol. 144, 106635.
Why do bank-dependent firms bear interest-rate risk?, 2020. Journal of Financial Intermediation, Vol. 41, 100823.
Working Papers
The Insurer Channel of Monetary Policy (with Akshat Singh), March 2025. [IMF WP 25/54]
Financial frictions, technological adoption, and corporate emissions (with Sharan Banerjee, Damien Capelle, and Germán Villegas Bauer), March 2025.
Mitigating climate change at the firm level: Mind the laggards (with Damien Capelle, Nicola Pierri, and Germán Villegas Bauer), February 2025. [IMF WP 23/242] Coverage: [IMF October 2023 WEO Chapter 1], [IMF October 2023 GFSR Chapter 3], [IMF April 2024 Fiscal Monitor Chapter 2] [IMF Italy 2023 Article IV Staff Report] [IMF Canada 2024 Article IV Staff Report] [IMF Germany 2024 Article IV Staff Report] [IMF Turkey 2024 Article IV Staff Report][IMF South Africa 2024 Article IV Staff Report]
Credit and Innovation in the Developing World: Evidence from India (with Siddharth George, Herman Lange, Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan), December 2024.
ESG Investing: Only Part of the Climate Puzzle (with Dalya Elmalt and Deniz Igan), April 2024. [IMF WP 21/112] [CEPR DP 16061] Coverage: [Callaway Climate Insights]
What Policy Combinations Worked? The Effect of Policy Packages on Bank Lending during COVID-19 (with Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, Prachi Mishra, and Jan Strasky), April 2024. [IMF WP 23/25] [CEPR DP 17880] Conditionally accepted, Journal of Financial Crises.
Policy Pieces, Book Chapters, and Datasets
“Inflation and Bank Profits: Monetary Policy Trade-offs” (with Katharina Bergant, Mai Hakamada, and Rui Mano), January 2025. [IMF Staff Discussion Note No. 2025/1]
Fund Diversity Policies, Diversity Characteristics, and Economist Promotions (with Christian Bogmans and Evgenia Weaver), June 2024. [Box 1 in 2022-2023 IMF Diversity & Inclusion Report]
Banks' Joint Exposure to Market and Run Risk (with Alexander Copestake and Yang Liu), September 2023. [IMF WP 23/200]
India's Banks: Lending to Productive Firms?, (with Siddharth George, Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan), July 2023. [Chapter 4 in India's Financial System: Building the Foundation for Strong and Sustainable Growth] [IMF WP 22/73]
Tracking Economic and Financial Policies during COVID-19: An Announcement-Level Database (with Yang Liu, Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, Prachi Mishra, and Jan Strasky), June 2022. [IMF WP 22/114] [Public dataset] [CEPR DP 17879]
Limits to private climate change mitigation (with Deniz Igan and Dalya Elmalt), November 2021. [In Combatting climate change: A CEPR collection] [VoxEU]
The Disconnect between Financial Markets and the Real Economy (with Deniz Igan and Maria Soledad Martinez Peria), August 2020. [IMF Special Series on COVID-19]
Impact of COVID-19 on Insurers (with Mu Yang Shin), May 2020 [IMF Special Series on COVID-19]
IMF Saudi Arabia 2019 Article IV Staff Report, September 2019. [IMF Country Report No. 19/290]
Policies to Drive Diversification for Saudi Arabia (with input from Nahla Samargandi), September 2019. [IMF Country Report No. 19/291]
IMF Qatar 2019 Article IV Staff Report, June 2019. [IMF Country Report No. 19/146]
Policies to Drive Diversification for Qatar, June 2019. [IMF Country Report No. 19/147]
Gulf Cooperation Council: How Developed and Inclusive are Financial Systems in the GCC? (with Nabil Ben Ltaifa, Ali Alreshan, Aidyn Bibolov, Anta Ndoye, and Erik Roos), December 2018. [IMF Policy Paper]
IMF Saudi Arabia 2018 Article IV Staff Report, August 2018. [IMF Country Report No. 18/263]
Podcasts and Popular Pieces
Rising Rates May Trigger Financial Instability, Complicating Fight Against Inflation (with Katharina Bergant, Mai Hakamada, and Rui Mano), February 2025. [IMF Blog]
In Major Economic Shocks, Best Response Combines All-Out, Large-Scale Policies (with Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, Prachi Mishra, and Jan Strasky), February 2023. [IMF Blog]
Economics of Climate Change, August 2021. [IMF Podcast]
Limits of Sustainable Investing (with Dalya Elmalt), July 2021. [A Correction podcast]
The impact of COVID-19 on insurers (with Mu Yang Shin), June 2020. [VoxEU]
When High Yield Goes Boom, June 2018. [IMF Blog]
Permanent Working Papers
How Do Changing U.S. Interest Rates Affect Banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries? (with Olumuyiwa S Adedeji and Yacoub Alatrash), December 2019. [IMF WP 19/268]
How is the likelihood of fire sales in a crisis affected by the interaction of various bank regulations? (with Vijay Narasiman), March 2017. [IMF WP 17/68]