Basu, an Indian national, most recently served as chief economic adviser of India's Ministry of Finance while on leave from Cornell, where he was an economics professor and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies.

"Having worked in a Ministry of Finance, in addition to his impressive academic achievements, Kaushik is uniquely suited to help us offer evidence-based solutions and advice to client countries and provide innovative excellence in leading our development research," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

"Kaushik brings first-hand experience from a developing country and will be a terrific asset to the institution," said Kim.

Basu, 60, holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics and founded the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics in 1992.

He has also served as chairman of Cornell's economics department, director of its Center for Analytic Economics, and headed the Program on Comparative Economic Development, the World Bank said in a statement.

In May 2008 the president of India awarded Basu one of the country's highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, for "distinguished service of high order."

Basu begins his term October 1.

Brief profile

He was the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics, and prior to that the Chairman of the Department of Economics and Director, Center for Analytic Economics at Cornell University. He previously served as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.

Basu was born in Kolkata and schooled at St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Kolkata. In an autobiographical essay, he noted that finishing school in 1969 he was caught in a dilemma. His father wanted him to study physics. But those were revolutionary times and he wanted to study nothing. They settled on economics as a half-way house between physics and nothing. In 1969 he moved to Delhi to do his undergraduate studies in Economics (Honors), with Mathematics as subsidiary, from St. Stephen's College. He then went on to the London School of Economics, to do his M.Sc in Economics completing it in 1974. Post his Master's, Basu was supposed to move to England to study law and take over his father's legal practice. But he had fallen in love with the concept of logic and deductive reasoning and came under the spell of Amartya Sen in his early days. He stayed on at the London School for his PhD, from 1974 to 1976. He did his PhD on choice theory under the chairmanship of Amartya Sen.