WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Simon Johnson, resigned Monday after 14 months in the job to return to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from where he is on leave.

"In order to devote more time to research and teaching, I have decided to leave the IMF," Johnson said in a statement. He is set to leave the IMF on Sept. 1, 2008 and return to the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Johnson was appointed as the IMF's economic counselor and director of its research department on March 2007, and presided at a time when the world economy began to slow rapidly amid a downturn in the U.S. housing market and unraveling of global financial and credit markets.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn praised Johnson's work at the fund, especially ways in which "he found new ways to apply innovative thinking to both conventional and unorthodox problems."

Johnson's resignation also comes as the IMF completes a restructuring and increases its surveillance of the world economy and especially financial markets roiled by a recent credit crisis.

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