Jiaxiong Yao is an economist in the IMF’s African Department. His research interest is in the areas of big data and machine learning, with a focus on issues in the sub-Saharan African region. More recently, he has worked on nowcasting, inequality, diversification, climate change and Africa-Asia relations. Jiaxiong holds a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Tsinghua University.