Laura Alfaro

Laura Alfaro is the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration. She is also a Faculty Research Associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research''s International Macroeconomics and Finance Program, Member of the Latin-American Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF), Faculty Associate at Harvard''s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and member of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ (DRCLAS) policy committee. In 2008, she was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.  She served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012.

Professor Alfaro is the author of multiple articles published in leading academic journals such as the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, and the Journal of International Economics, and of Harvard Business School cases related to the field of international economics and in particular international capital flows, foreign direct investment, and sovereign debt. At Harvard Business School since 1999, Professor Alfaro has taught in General Management Program, the Program for Leadership Development, and in other executive education offerings as well the first year and second year of the MBA program and the doctoral program. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she was recipient of 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 Catolica of Chile where she graduated with highest honors. She was awarded a Francisco Marroquin Foundation scholarship.