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CARMEN REINHART

Former Senior Vice President and World Bank Group Chief Economist (2020 – 2022). Professor at Harvard Kennedy School

Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School
Her work has helped to inform the understanding of financial crises in both advanced economies and emerging markets
Ranked among the top Economists worldwide based on publications and scholarly citations
Has been listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance ,and Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers
In 2018 she was awarded the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. Assuming this role on June 15, 2020, Reinhart provided thought leadership for the institution at an unprecedented time of crisis. She also managed the Bank’s Development Economics Department.

Reinhart’s areas of expertise are in international finance, and macroeconomics. Her work has helped to inform the understanding of financial crises in both advanced economies and emerging markets. She has published extensively on capital flows, exchange rate policy, inflation and central banking, financial and sovereign debt crises, and contagion.

She comes to this position on public service leave from Harvard Kennedy School where she is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System. Previously, she was the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland.

During her career, Reinhart has worked in numerous roles to address policy challenges including most recently, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact. She serves in the Advisory Panels of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the International Monetary Fund. Earlier, she was the Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund and held positions as Chief Economist and Vice President at the investment bank Bear Stearns.

Ranked among the top Economists worldwide based on publications and scholarly citations, Reinhart has been listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance, Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and Thomson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. In 2018 she was awarded the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics and NABE’s Adam Smith Award, among others. Her book (with Kenneth S. Rogoff) entitled This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly has been translated to over 20 languages and won the Paul A. Samuelson Award. She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Carmen tailors each presentation to the needs of her audience and is not limited to the topics listed below. Please ask us about any subject that interests you:

International Finance
Macroeconomics
Capital flows
Exchange rate policy
Banking and sovereign debt crises, and contagion

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

A comprehensive look at international financial crises that puts more recent economic meltdowns into perspective

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crash-ing―and recovering―their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"―claiming that the old rules of valua-tion no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff defini-tively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes―from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much―or how little―we have learned.

Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, dura-tion, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts―as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur.

An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.