Adriana Kugler


Adriana Debora Kugler is an American economist who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She previously served as U.S. executive director at the World Bank, nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2022. She is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and is currently on leave from her tenured position at Georgetown. She served as the Chief Economist to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis from September 6, 2011 to January 4, 2013.

Early life and education

Kugler is of Jewish and Hispanic descent. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in 1991, graduating with first class joint honors in economics and political science. In 1997, she was awarded her Ph.D. by the University of California, Berkeley; her advisors were Nobel laureate George Akerlof, Nada Eissa, and David K. Levine.

Academic and research career

Kugler was Vice-Provost for Faculty for Georgetown University from 2013 to 2016 and is currently a full professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy. She was founder and co-director of the International Summer Institute on Policy Evaluation between 2010 and 2013. She served as chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor between 2011 and 2013, where she worked actively on developing policies and proposals on unemployment insurance, training programs, retirement benefits, overtime pay and minimum wages, immigration, disability insurance and occupational safety regulations. Prior to coming to Georgetown, she was a full and associate professor at the economics departments at the University of Houston and at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
Kugler is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Labor Studies program and a research fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research in London, the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration in London, and the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Kugler has served on the editorial boards of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, The Journal of Labor and Development, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour Economics, Applied Economics Quarterly, and Economia Journal.
Kugler continues to research and work with policies that help stimulate youth employment, as well as observe the effect varieties of policies have on worker mobility and job quality. Her research includes labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries. Her work also includes contributions on the role of public policies, unemployment, and immigration.
Kugler was the 2007 recipient of the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association, in recognition of her research contributions to the field of labor and industrial relations.
In 2010, one of her papers, "Trade Reforms and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in Colombia" won first prize for Best Contribution in the area of "Globalization, Regulations and Development" from the Global Development Network.
She has been the recipient of numerous research grants for studies in areas that include the role of public policies, unemployment, and immigration on labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries.

Political appointments

On August 4, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Kugler to be the U.S. Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the lending arm of the World Bank. Her initial nomination was withdrawn by President Biden on September 20, 2021 because of a typo in her name and she was renominated that same day.
President Biden renominated her on January 4, 2022 to be considered under the new session of Congress. Kugler was favorably reported by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 15, 2021 and again on March 8, 2022. The entire Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote on April 7, 2022.

Federal Reserve

Biden nominated Kugler to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in May 2023. She was confirmed by the Senate on September 7, 2023 and sworn in on September 13.
On August 1, 2025, Kugler announced her intent to resign early from the Board the following week. She did not give a reason for her departure but stated she would return to academia in the fall. In November 2025, an ethics report disclosed that Gov. Kugler had violated ethics rules prohibiting trading of equities during the blackout period ahead of Board meetings. In a financial disclosure form from 2024, she stated that four trades in individual stocks "were carried out by my spouse, without my knowledge, and I affirm that my spouse did not intend to violate any rules."

Selected publications

Kugler's work has been published in the top general interest and specialized journals in economics and public policy, including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic & Statistics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Policy Reform. Her research has been covered in multiple reports, including the World Development Report published by the World Bank, and the annual development reports published by the Inter-American Development Bank and the OECD.
  • "Trade and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants in Colombia,", Review of Economic Dynamics, 16.1 : 135–158.
  • "Katrina's Children: Evidence on the Structure of Peer Effects from Hurricane Evacuees,", American Economic Review, 102: 2048–82, August 2012.
  • "Employment Consequences of Restrictive Permanent Contracts: Evidence from Spanish Labor Market Reforms,", CEPR Working Paper No. 3724, 2003.
  • "Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants,", Review of Economics and Statistics, May 2010, 92.
  • "Employment and Social Security: An Alternative View," in Bjorn Lomborg, ed., Latin American Development Priorities: Costs and Benefits, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  • "Market Reforms, Factor Reallocation, and Productivity Growth in Latin America,", in Norman Loayza and Luis Serven, eds. Business Regulation and Economic Performance, World Bank and Stanford University Press, 2010.
  • "Labor Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in Developing Countries: Evidence from Colombia,", Economic Development and Cultural Change, January 2009, 57.
  • "Rural Windfall or Resource Curse? Coca, Income and Civil Conflict in Colombia,",
  • "Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States,", Economic Journal, June 2007, 117.
  • "The Effects of Employment Protection in Europe and the U.S.," Opuscle, CREI, 2007.
  • "Plant Turnover and Structural Reforms in Colombia", IMF Staff Papers, 2006, 53.
  • "Effects of Employment Protection and Product Market Regulations on the Italian Labor Market,", in Julian Messina, Claudio Michelacci, Jarkko Turunen, and Gylfi Zoega, Eds., Labour Market Adjustments in Europe. Edward Elgar, 2006.
  • "Doctors without Borders? Relicensing Requirements and Negative Selection in the Market for Physicians", Journal of Labor Economics, July 2005, 23.
  • "Wage-Shifting Effects of Severance Payments Savings Accounts in Colombia," Journal of Public Economics, February 2005, 89.
  • "The Effect of Structural Reforms on Productivity and Profitability Enhancing Reallocation: Evidence from Colombia", Journal of Development Economics, December 2004, 75.
  • "Effects of Trade on Job Reallocation: Evidence from Latin America", Journal of Policy Reform, December 2004, 7.
  • "The Effect of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility: Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform," in James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés, Eds., Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
  • "The Reversal of Inequality in Colombia, 1978-95: A Combination of Persistent and Fluctuating Forces" in François Bourguignon, Francisco Ferreira, and Nora Lustig, Eds., The Microeconomics of Income Distribution Dynamics in East Asia and Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • "Protective or Counter-Productive? Labor Market Institutions and the Effect of Immigration on EU Natives", Economic Journal, June 2003, 113.
  • "The Impact of Firing Costs on Turnover and Unemployment: Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform," International Tax and Public Finance Journal, August 1999, 6.
  • "What Factors Contributed to Changes in Employment During and After the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Policy, 4:3, February 28, 2015.
  • "Beyond Job Lock: Impacts of Public Health Insurance on Occupational and Industrial Mobility,", January 2016.
  • "The Effect of Providing Breakfast on Student Performance: Evidence form an In-Class Breakfast Program", Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Summer 2014, 33.
  • "Labor Market Analysis and Labor Policy Making in the Nation's Capital," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Spring 2014, 67.
For the above articles, as well as more complete lists of Published Articles and Research Papers, reference may be made to Kugler's internet pages at the University of Houston and Georgetown Public Policy Institute.