Kristin Forbes

Non-Resident Fellow
kjforbes@mit.edu

Expertise

Applied Economics, International Finance, International Economics, Development Economics, Macroeconomics, Capital Controls, Contagion, Currency Crises, Exchange Rates, Globalization, Latin America, China, India.

Research Topics

Education

PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998)
BA summa cum laude with highest honors from Williams College (1992)

Background

Kristin Forbes is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. Over the last few years she has rotated between academia and economic policy positions in the U.S. government. From 2003 to 2005 Forbes served as a Member of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers (where she was the youngest person to ever hold this position). During 2001-2002 she worked in the U.S. Treasury Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Quantitative Policy Analysis, Latin American and Caribbean Nations. At the start of 2005, Forbes was honored as a "Young Global Leader" as part of the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Forbes' academic research addresses a number of policy-related questions in international finance and development economics. She has contributed to a new and innovative literature using firm-level data to explore international macroeconomic relationships. Forbes’ recent work examines the determinants of international capital flows, the impact of capital controls on investment decisions, and the effect of currency depreciations and financial crises on companies around the globe. She has also written extensively on financial market contagion (including a co-edited book International Financial Contagion, 2001) and the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. Forbes was awarded the Milken Award for Distinguished Economic Research in 2000 and was honored as Sloan School of Management's "Teacher of the Year" in 2001.

Forbes is currently a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a non-resident fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Prior to joining MIT, Forbes worked in the investment banking division at Morgan Stanley and in the policy research department at the World Bank.

For publications and additional information, see: http://web.mit.edu/kjforbes/www