Carmen Reinhart

Carmen Reinhart
Born	Carmen M. Castellanos 7 10, 1955
Birthplace	Havana, Cuba
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist, academic
Title	Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System
Employer	Harvard Kennedy School
Known for	Research on financial crises, sovereign debt, and international economics; co-author of This Time Is Different
Education	Columbia University (MA, PhD)
Awards	King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics (2018), Adam Smith Award (NABE, 2018)

Carmen M. Reinhart (née Castellanos; born October 7, 1955) is a Cuban-American economist who holds the position of Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. Born in Havana, Cuba, Reinhart emigrated to the United States and built a career that placed her among the most cited economists in the world, with research spanning international economics, financial crises, sovereign debt, and currency dynamics. She served as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank from June 2020 to June 2022. Prior to joining Harvard, she held positions at the Peterson Institute for International Economics as the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow and at the University of Maryland as Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics. Reinhart is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. According to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), she is ranked among the top economists worldwide based on publications and scholarly citations. Her work, particularly the book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly co-authored with Kenneth Rogoff, has shaped public and policy debates about government debt, financial stability, and economic recovery in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and beyond.

Early Life

Carmen M. Reinhart was born Carmen M. Castellanos on October 7, 1955, in Havana, Cuba. She emigrated from Cuba to the United States as a refugee, eventually settling in Florida. Her background as a Cuban refugee who rose to the highest echelons of economic policymaking and academic research has been noted in profiles of her career. Growing up in the United States, Reinhart pursued her education in the state of Florida before eventually advancing to graduate studies at Columbia University in New York.

Details about her family life in Cuba and the circumstances of her departure remain limited in published accounts, but her trajectory from refugee to one of the world's most influential economists has been highlighted in international media coverage as emblematic of the contributions of immigrants to American academic and policy life.

Education

Reinhart began her higher education at Miami Dade College before transferring to Florida International University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. She subsequently pursued graduate studies at Columbia University in New York City, where she earned both a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics. Her doctoral advisor at Columbia was Robert Mundell, the Canadian economist who would later receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1999 for his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas. Mundell's influence on Reinhart is evident in her sustained focus on international monetary systems, exchange rate dynamics, and the interplay between capital flows and financial crises — themes that would define much of her subsequent research output.

Career

Early Academic and Policy Career

After completing her doctorate, Reinhart held positions at various academic and policy institutions. She served as an economist at the International Monetary Fund, where she gained direct experience with international financial systems and the economic challenges faced by developing countries. She subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Maryland as Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics, where she conducted extensive research on financial crises, capital flows, and exchange rate policy.

During this period, Reinhart co-authored a foundational paper with Graciela Kaminsky titled "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems" (1999), which examined the links between banking crises and currency crises. The paper became one of the most widely cited works in the field of international finance, establishing a framework for understanding how banking sector distress and currency collapses often occur in tandem, particularly in emerging market economies. The research drew on a large historical dataset and identified patterns of economic indicators that tended to precede such "twin crises," offering both a diagnostic and predictive tool for policymakers. In a 2025 interview with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Reinhart discussed the enduring relevance of the twin crises framework and its implications for understanding contemporary financial vulnerabilities.

She also served as the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a prominent nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., focused on international economic policy.

Peterson Institute and Transition to Harvard

At the Peterson Institute, Reinhart continued her research on sovereign debt and financial crises, contributing to the institution's policy analysis and publications. Her work during this period increasingly centered on the historical patterns of government borrowing, default, and recovery — themes that would culminate in her most well-known book.

In 2012, Harvard Kennedy School announced that Reinhart would join the faculty as the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System, a named chair reflecting the school's focus on training public policy leaders with expertise in global economics. At Harvard, Reinhart continued her prolific research output while also engaging with policy institutions and governmental bodies.

This Time Is Different

Reinhart's most prominent scholarly work is This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, co-authored with Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff and published by Princeton University Press in 2009. The book examines financial crises across 66 countries and over eight centuries, arguing that the recurring pattern of sovereign debt crises, banking panics, and inflationary episodes reflects a persistent tendency among governments, investors, and policymakers to believe that historical patterns of financial collapse do not apply to current circumstances — the "this time is different" syndrome.

The book was published in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and attracted significant attention from both academic economists and the general public. Its central thesis — that high levels of government debt are associated with lower economic growth — became a focal point in policy debates about fiscal austerity versus stimulus spending in the post-crisis period.

In a 2009 interview, Reinhart cautioned against overly optimistic economic forecasts, drawing on historical data to argue that recoveries from severe financial crises tend to be prolonged and painful.

Growth in a Time of Debt Controversy

A related and widely cited paper by Reinhart and Rogoff, "Growth in a Time of Debt" (2010), argued that countries with public debt exceeding 90 percent of gross domestic product experienced notably lower economic growth. The paper was influential in fiscal policy discussions, particularly among proponents of government austerity measures in Europe and the United States during the sovereign debt crisis.

In April 2013, Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts Amherst published a working paper identifying errors in Reinhart and Rogoff's analysis. The critique identified a coding error in the spreadsheet used for calculations, the selective exclusion of available data, and an unconventional weighting methodology. When corrected, the relationship between high debt and low growth was found to be considerably weaker than Reinhart and Rogoff had reported, though a negative correlation between high debt and growth still existed at a reduced magnitude.

The discovery of the spreadsheet error attracted widespread media coverage, with commentators and journalists describing it as one of the most consequential errors in the history of modern economics, given the paper's influence on austerity policies. Economist Dean Baker and others raised questions about the extent to which the original paper's findings may have influenced policymakers to pursue austerity measures that contributed to unemployment.

Reinhart and Rogoff acknowledged the spreadsheet coding error but maintained that their broader conclusions about the negative association between high debt levels and economic growth remained valid, and they disputed the characterization that their work was the primary driver of austerity policies.

World Bank Chief Economist

On May 20, 2020, Reinhart was appointed Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank by President David Malpass, effective June 15, 2020. Her appointment came at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a period of unprecedented economic disruption that resulted in sharp increases in sovereign debt levels across the developing world and created new challenges for international financial institutions.

During her tenure, Reinhart drew attention to what she and co-authors termed the "debt pandemic" — the surge in government borrowing by developing countries during the COVID-19 crisis, layered on top of already elevated debt levels accumulated during the preceding decade. Writing with Rogoff and others, she argued that greater official aid and concessional lending were needed to help vulnerable populations and that the true scale of developing country indebtedness was obscured by lack of transparency, particularly regarding loans from non-traditional creditors.

Reinhart also highlighted the importance of debt transparency, co-authoring work published through IMF channels on the need to reveal hidden liabilities and their terms for the purposes of economic recovery and crisis prevention.

She served in the role until June 30, 2022, after which she returned to her position at Harvard Kennedy School.

Return to Harvard and Continued Research

Following her departure from the World Bank, Reinhart resumed her faculty position at Harvard Kennedy School as the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System. Her post-World Bank research has continued to focus on themes of sovereign debt, financial crises, and the evolving architecture of international lending.

In November 2025, Reinhart co-authored a study published through Harvard Kennedy School examining China's lending to developing countries, tracing the trajectory of Chinese state lending from a period of rapid expansion to a subsequent contraction and analyzing its implications for the international financial system.

In August 2025, Reinhart commented publicly on the state of the U.S. economy, stating that "recession risks are higher than average" and pointing to changing monetary and immigration policies as factors that may be increasing the likelihood of an economic downturn.

She has also continued to engage with policy institutions, including participation in events at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on topics such as the relationship between Argentina and the International Monetary Fund.

Professional Affiliations

Reinhart holds affiliations with several major professional and research organizations. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She was a Founding Contributor of VoxEU, a policy portal associated with the CEPR. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Economic Association, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), and the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.

Personal Life

Reinhart was born Carmen M. Castellanos and later took the surname Reinhart. She holds American citizenship. Beyond these publicly documented facts, Reinhart has maintained a relatively private personal life. She has been based in the greater Boston area during her tenure at Harvard Kennedy School, with periods in Washington, D.C., during her service at the World Bank and earlier affiliations with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the University of Maryland.

Recognition

Reinhart has received significant recognition for her contributions to economics and policy research. According to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), she ranks among the top economists in the world based on the volume and citation impact of her published research.

In December 2018, Reinhart received the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics, an award recognizing outstanding contributions to the study of economics in relation to Spain and the Spanish-speaking world. That same year, she was awarded the Adam Smith Award by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE).

Reinhart has been listed among Foreign Policy magazine's Top 100 Global Thinkers, acknowledging her influence on international economic policy discussions. She has also been included in Thomson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds and Bloomberg Markets magazine's list of the 50 Most Influential people in finance.

She has testified before the United States Congress on matters related to financial regulation, sovereign debt, and economic recovery. Her public engagement also includes appearances on economic policy forums and media discussions, including interviews on the EconTalk podcast.

Legacy

Reinhart's career has been defined by a sustained focus on the historical patterns underlying financial crises, sovereign debt, and international capital flows. Her work with Kaminsky on twin crises provided an analytical framework that continues to be applied in the study of financial instability in emerging markets. The book This Time Is Different, co-authored with Rogoff, became one of the most discussed works in economics in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, contributing a historical perspective to debates about the durability and consequences of government indebtedness.

The controversy surrounding the "Growth in a Time of Debt" paper and the discovery of spreadsheet errors brought increased public and academic scrutiny to questions of data transparency and replicability in economics research. While the episode prompted criticism, it also contributed to broader discussions within the economics profession about methodological standards and the importance of making data and code available for independent verification.

Reinhart's service as World Bank Chief Economist during the COVID-19 pandemic placed her at the center of international efforts to address the economic fallout of the crisis, particularly the surge in developing country debt. Her continued research on Chinese lending practices and global debt dynamics reflects an ongoing engagement with some of the most consequential issues in international economics.

As a Cuban refugee who rose to occupy senior positions in both academia and international economic governance, Reinhart's career has been noted as an example of the contributions of immigrant scholars to American economic thought and policy.