Laura Alfaro

Laura Alfaro is the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration. At Harvard since 1999, she served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012, taking a leave from HBS. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of International Economics and the World Bank Research Observer and Vice-President of LACEA, the Latin American and Caribbean Economist Association and a co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Growth. She is also a Faculty Research Associate in the NBER International Finance and Macroeconomics (IFM) Program and the International Trade and Investment (ITI) Program, CEPR IFM program and co-Chair of the NBER’s Economics of Supply Chains conference, a joint effort with the Department of Homeland Security. Professor Alfaro is the author of multiple articles published in leading academic journals such as the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of International Economics, and Harvard Business School cases related to the field of international economics and in particular international capital flows, foreign direct investment, sovereign debt, trade, and emerging markets. She is a member of the Latin-American Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF), the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) policy committee, Faculty Associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, among others. 

Professor Alfaro has taught in the first year and second year of the MBA program, the doctoral program, the General Management Program, the Program for Leadership Development, and in other executive education offerings. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she received the Dissertation Fellowship award. She received a B.A in economics with honors from the Universidad de Costa Rica and a 'Licenciatura' from the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile where she graduated with the highest honors. She was awarded a Francisco Marroquin Foundation scholarship.