Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist and longtime Harvard Kennedy School faculty member, has been elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (AEA). Reinhart is on public service leave from the Kennedy School, where she is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of International Financial System.
The AEA cited Reinhart’s work on financial instability, the effects of high levels of government debt, and exchange-rate systems and management, among other topics. They also cited her influential works, such as This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, co-written with her frequent Harvard University collaborator Kenneth Rogoff, the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics.
“In all, Reinhart’s work has shown how to use the experience of many countries and time periods to gather lessons about the causes and prevention of financial crises, topics of evident importance,” the AEA said in a statement. “She is a prolific writer whose work has proved both illuminating and often prescient.”
Other recipient of the AEA’s Distinguished Fellowship this year included Barry Eichengreen, of the University of California-Berkeley, and James Poterba, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Also elected as a Distinguished Fellow was Sadie Alexander. Alexander, who was recognized posthumously, became the first African American to earn a PhD in economics in the United States in 1921.