Adriana Debora Kugler (born October 23, 1969) is an American economist who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2023 to 2026, becoming the first Hispanic person to serve on the board. She previously was 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. She was the Chief Economist to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis from September 6, 2011 to January 4, 2013.
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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.
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 was 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 (CEPR) in London, the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) 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 been 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's research includes labor markets and policy evaluation in developed and developing countries. She continues to research and work the causal impacts of 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 (including payroll taxes, employment protections, occupational licensing, and unemployment insurance), 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.
Affiliations with research networks
Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Labor Studies Group: Faculty Research Fellow, 2004-2009 and Research Associate, 2009-April 2022 and October 2025-Present
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Children’s Group: Research Associate, July 2016- April 2022 and October 2025-Present
Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, Stanford University, 2006-Present (except April 2022-August 2025)
Research Affiliate, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), 2002-April 2022, and October 2025-Present
Research Fellow, Rockwool Foundation-Berlin, 2025-Present
Political appointments
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.
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.
In August 2025, Kugler announced her resignation early from the Board the following week. She did not give a reason for her departure and stated she would return to academia in the fall. A November 2025 ethics disclosure showed that Gov. Kugler's husband traded equities during the blackout period ahead of Board meetings. In that financial disclosure, 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."
Recognition
2025 ASHE Academic Achievement Award, American Society of Hispanic Economists, October 2025
100 Most Influential Women In U.S. Finance, March 2024 and March 2025
Chase Award for her leadership and contributions to the Evolution of Multilateral Development Banks, U.S. Department of the Treasury, June 2023
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," (with Marcela Eslava, John Haltiwanger, and Maurice Kugler), Review of Economic Dynamics, 16.1 (2013): 135–158.
"Katrina's Children: Evidence on the Structure of Peer Effects from Hurricane Evacuees," (with Scott Imberman and Bruce Sacerdote), American Economic Review, 102(5): 2048–82, August 2012.
Featured in the Houston Chronicle on September 12, 2009, the San Antonio Express News on September 12, 2009, and the Houston Business Journal on September 11, 2009.
"Employment Consequences of Restrictive Permanent Contracts: Evidence from Spanish Labor Market Reforms," (with Juan F. Jimeno and Virginia Hernanz), CEPR Working Paper No. 3724, 2003 (revision at Journal of the European Economic Association).
Featured in the World Development Report 2006 and 2007.
"Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants," (with Marcela Eslava, John Haltiwanger and Maurice Kugler), Review of Economics and Statistics, May 2010, 92(2).
"Employment and Social Security: An Alternative View," in Bjorn Lomborg, ed., Latin American Development Priorities: Costs and Benefits, Cambridge University Press, 2010.