David Malpass

David Robert Malpass (born March 8, 1956 ) is an American economic analyst and former government official who served as President of the World Bank Group from 2019 to 2023.

Malpass previously served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs under Donald Trump, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary under Ronald Reagan, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush.

He served as Chief Economist at Bear Stearns for the six years preceding its collapse.

From 1977 to 1983, he worked in Portland, Oregon for Esco Corporation and Arthur Andersen's systems consulting group, where he became a licensed CPA.

During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, Malpass worked on an array of economic, budget, and foreign policy issues including small business promotion throughout Latin America and the 1986 tax cut.

Malpass served as the Republican staff director of the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee from 1989 to 1990, and as a member of Congress's blue-ribbon panel on budget scoring from 2002 to 2003.

Malpass was chief economist at Bear Stearns from 1993 to 2008.

Malpass has been noted for his forecasts before the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and in the time period following the Great Recession.

In 2007, before the housing market collapse, Malpass wrote for The Wall Street Journal that "Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy, or of job creation...the housing- and debt-market corrections will probably add to the length of the U.S. economic expansion."

As a result of the global financial crisis and under the prodding of the Federal Reserve and United States Department of the Treasury, Bear Sterns was sold to JPMorgan Chase in March 2008 for 6% of its value twelve months prior.

In June 2008, Malpass founded Encima Global, a New York City firm providing daily analysis of global economic and political trends relevant to institutional investors.

Bruce Bartlett cited Malpass' 2008 forecast of economic growth and his 2012 forecast of recession as specific examples of partisan bias in economic forecasts.

In 2010, Malpass ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in that year's special election in New York.

He placed second in the three-way primary with 38% of the vote after former Congressman Joe DioGuardi's 42%.

He also called for the raising of interest rates in 2011 at a time when others believed this would be harmful to the economy.

In 2012, he wrote a chapter entitled 'Sound Money, Sound Policy' in The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs, published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Malpass writes a column for Forbes and is a contributor to the op-ed section of The Wall Street Journal.

He is also a frequent television commentator.

Malpass sits on the boards of UBS Funds, the New Mountain Financial Corporation, and the Gary Klinsky Children's Center.

He is also a former director of the National Committee on United States–China Relations, the Council of the Americas, and the Economic Club of New York, and a former member of the board of trustees of the Manhattan Institute.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Malpass served as an economic advisor to Trump, and in 2017, he was nominated and confirmed as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs at the Treasury Department.

Malpass joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign in May 2016 as Senior Economic Advisor.

He appeared frequently on television and radio to support Trump's message of faster growth through policy reforms.

Four of his pre-election Forbes columns discussed the need for political upheaval to upend the status quo.

On August 5, the campaign announced an economic round-table including Malpass.

His September 1, 2016 op-ed essay in The New York Times described fast growth through a policy upheaval covering taxes, trade, regulations and energy ("Why Our Economy Needs Trump").

Throughout the election time period, Malpass was heading the transition team's work on economic agencies including Treasury, Commerce, the Federal Reserve, USTR and independent regulatory agencies as Trump prepared to become president.

In March 2017, the White House announced that Malpass would be President Trump's nominee for Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.

Malpass was confirmed for the position by the United States Senate on August 3, 2017.

Malpass took a critical position on China during his tenure.

He was described as "a champion of President Donald Trump's protectionist message."

Malpass was elected President of the World Bank on April 4, 2019, having been nominated to the position in February 2019 by the Trump administration.

He formally took office on April 9, 2019, and announced in February 2023 that he was leaving the position in June of that year.

Malpass earned a B.A. in physics at Colorado College and an MBA at the University of Denver.

He studied international economics at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

He speaks Spanish, Russian, and French.

In February 2019, Trump announced Malpass as the nominee for President of the World Bank, succeeding Jim Yong Kim, who had announced in January 2019 that he would be stepping down three years prior to the end of his five-year term in 2022.

Malpass was unanimously approved by the executive board on April 5, 2019, and began his term on April 9.

During the start of his tenure, Malpass rarely mentioned climate change and was considered a supporter of Trump's environmental policies.

After inauguration of Joe Biden in early 2021, American policy shifted towards prioritizing fighting climate change, and Malpass increasingly began working and speaking on climate policy.