Yaga Venugopal Reddy is an Indian economist and a retired Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1964 batch belonging to Andhra Pradesh cadre. Reddy served as governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 6 September 2003 until 5 September 2008.
He was a member of The Palais Royal Initiative on the Reform of the International Monetary System. He was also on the Advisory Board of Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). He was member of the High Level Advisory Panel on Independent Evaluation of Role of IMF in Global Financial Crisis.

Dr. Reddy was the Conference President of the 97th Annual Conference of the Indian Economic Association in 2014. Earlier, during 2011, he was President of Indian Econometric Society. In 2010, President of India awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan to Dr. Reddy. Dr. Reddy was Governor of Reserve Bank of India from 2003-2008.

On 17 July 2008, Dr. Reddy was made an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics. Earlier, he was awarded Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by Sri Venkateswara University, India; and Doctor of Civil Law (Honoris Causa) by the University of Mauritius.

Dr. Reddy (born on August 17, 1941, in Patur, Cuddapah District, then in Madras Presidency, British India) received his M.A. in economics from Madras University, India. He holds a Ph.D. from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He also holds a Diploma in Economic Planning from the Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands.

He joined Indian Administrative Service in 1964. He served in Governments of Andhra While in the IAS, he held the positions of secretary (banking) in Ministry of Finance and principal secretary in Government of Andhra Pradesh and has worked with the governments of China, Bahrain, Ethiopia and Tanzania. He has been a Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, a full-time UGC Visiting Professor in Department of Business Management, Osmania University; full-time Visiting Faculty, Administrative Staff College of India and continues to be Honorary Professor at Centre for Economic and Social Studies at Hyderabad. Reddy was also Distinguished Professor of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.[4] Reddy was Member of The Commission of Experts of the president of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of International Monetary and Financial System. In addition to the chair, Professor Joseph Stiglitz (USA), members of this UN Commission were drawn from Japan, Western Europe, Africa, Latin America, South and East Asia.[5] Reddy was president of The Indian Econometric Society during 2011.[6] Reddy was on the advisory board of Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). The INET advisory board includes Nobel laureates as well as other prominent economists.[7] Reddy was on International Advisory Board of the Columbia Program on Indian Economic Policies, Columbia University, New York. He was a Member of an informal international group of prominent persons on International Monetary Reforms. He was also on Advisory Group of eminent persons to advise the finance minister of India on G-20 issues.[8] Reddy was elected as Conference President of the Indian Economic Association (IEA) for the year 2014.[9]

He was the chairman of the Fourteenth Finance Commission of India since 3 January 2013. He served World Bank, and rose to the position of Secretary (Banking) in Ministry of Finance in 1995. He moved to Reserve Bank of India in 1996 as Deputy Governor, and then to International Monetary Fund in 2002 as Executive Director on the Board. Reddy is credited to have played a crucial role in framing macro-economic policies that helped quarantine the country from the domino effect of the financial crisis encountered by the South-East Asian countries during the later part of the 1990s.[12] He, along with Dr. C. Rangarajan, is also credited with the formulation of the course to be steered by the country to come out of the then Balance of Payments crisis.

In the Indian context, he was the first to use the term ‘Financial inclusion in April 2005 in his Annual Policy Statement as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.[13] Later on, this concept gained ground and came to be widely used in India and abroad. While recognising the concerns in regard to the banking practices that tend to exclude rather than attract vast sections of population, banks were urged in the Annual Policy Statement to review their existing practices to align them with the objective of financial inclusion

Currently, Dr. Reddy is Honorary Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad, India.