Alice Tianbo Zhang

I am an Economist at the International Monetary Fund, where I advise on macro-financial and structural policy issues across emerging markets, advanced economies, and low-income countries. My work examines how structural transformation, the energy transition, and systemic risks affect households, firms, financial institutions, and sovereign balance sheets, translating rigorous empirical analysis into actionable guidance for policymakers.

Previously, I was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. I am a fellow at the Center for Development Economics and Policy at Columbia University and a Research Affiliate at the Columbia Climate School. I received a Ph.D. from Columbia University and a B.A. with Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Research & Policy Insights

One-third of global coal capital at risk from energy transition

The Asia-Pacific region produces close to 80 percent of the world's coal and is home to the largest coal exporters (Australia and Indonesia) and importers (India, Japan, China). As the global energy transition accelerates, the question for the region is not whether coal demand will decline, but how fast, for whom, and what happens to the capital already invested. In a new IMF working paper with John Spray and Sneha Thube, " The Economic Implications of the Energy Transition i

Feb 18