Kristin J. Forbes (born August 21, 1970) is an American

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

. She is the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Global Economics at the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

Early life

The eldest of three children, Forbes was raised in Concord, New Hampshire and attend Concord High School. In 1988, as a high school senior, she was selected as New Hampshire's

Presidential Scholar The United States Presidential Scholars Program is a program of the United States Department of Education. It is described as "one of the Nation's highest honors for students" in the United States of America and the globe. The program was estab ...

, which gave her the opportunity to meet President Ronald Reagan at a ceremony in the

White House Rose Garden The White House Rose Garden is a garden bordering the Oval Office and the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., United States. The garden is approximately 125 feet long and 60 feet wide ( by , or about 684m²). It balances the Jacqu ...

Career

After graduating summa cum laude in 1992 with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

with highest honors in Economics from

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

, Forbes joined the investment banking division of

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

as an analyst on Wall Street,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 1993, she joined the policy research department of the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

. While working on a study about

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, she decided to concentrate on a career in economics. She studied for a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT), during which she spent a summer in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and then spent three months traveling throughout the country. She completed her Ph.D. in 1998 in international and development economics, and was hired by the MIT Sloan School of Management. While teaching, her post-doctorate studies focused on

financial contagion Financial contagion refers to "the spread of market disturbances mostly on the downside from one country to the other, a process observed through co-movements in exchange rates, stock prices, sovereign spreads, and capital flows". Financial contag ...

, looking at how it spread from business-to-business.

Treasury department, CEA

In 2001, Forbes was hired by

John B. Taylor John Brian Taylor (born December 8, 1946) is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He taught at Columbia Univer ...

, then the undersecretary of international affairs at the

U.S. Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

, to serve in the Office of International Affairs as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Quantitative Policy Analysis and Latin American and Caribbean Nations. A year later she returned to MIT to teach and study. In 2003, she was approached by

Gregory Mankiw Nicholas Gregory Mankiw (; born February 3, 1958) is an American macroeconomist who is currently the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Mankiw is best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics. Mankiw ...

, the head of the

Council of Economic Advisors The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

, and after confirmation by the

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

, she served until 2005 as the youngest-ever member of the President's CEA, in the administration of

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

Return to academia

Forbes returned to academia in mid-2005 to take up her current position. She has since been researching financial crises,

, capital controls, macroprudential regulations, foreign investment and tax holidays. In August 2012 she presented the opening paper at the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

's annual symposium in

Jackson Hole, Wyoming Jackson Hole (originally called Jackson's Hole by mountain men) is a valley between the Gros Ventre and Teton mountain ranges in the U.S. state of Wyoming, near the border with Idaho, in Teton County, one of the richest counties in the Un ...

, on the subject of financial contagion. During this period, Forbes served as a member of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisers for the State of Massachusetts. She was also a member of the

Trilateral Commission The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973 principally by American banker and philanthropist David ...

and sat on the Panel of Economic Advisers for the

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. Ins ...

, the Academic Advisory Board for the

Peterson Institute The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), known until 2006 as the Institute for International Economics (IIE), is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded by C. Fred Bergsten in 1981 and has been led by ...

for International Economics, and the Center for Global Development. She also became more involved in poverty reduction, and helped start DeWorm the World, along with

Esther Duflo Esther Duflo, FBA (; born 25 October 1972) is a French–American economist who is a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Abd ...

Michael Kremer Michael Robert Kremer (born November 12, 1964) is an American development economist who is University Professor in Economics And Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He is the founding director of the Development Innovation Lab at the B ...

, and

Rachel Glennerster Rachel Glennerster (born 21 October 1965) is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Glennerster served as chief economist for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, formerly the Department for International Dev ...

, a non-profit organization which is now part o
EvidenceAction
and ha
supported programs deworming over 300 million children in Africa and Asia.
In May 2014, she was appointed to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

's Bank of England

Monetary Policy Committee Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may refer to: * Monetary Policy Committee (India) The Monetary Policy Committee is responsible for fixing the benchmark interest rate in India. The meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee are held at least fo ...

, as an "external member", replacing Ben Broadbent. She delivered a number o
influential speeches
reflecting her
deep dives" on economic challenges
facing the United Kingdom. She dissented on March 16, 2017, preferring to raise rates, arguing inflation could overshoot the 2% target. She is finished her term in June 2017, and returned to MIT's Sloan School of Management. She has won many teaching awards and her classes are among the most popular at Sloan. Forbes is currently a research associate at the

NBER The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

and research fellow at the CEPR. She replaced

Barry Eichengreen Barry Julian Eichengreen (born 1952) is an American economist and economic historian who holds the title of George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he ha ...

as the Convener of the

Bellagio Group The Bellagio Group is a group of international economists, senior central bankers and Treasury officials who meet annually to discuss international economic and financial issues. History The group was formed in the 1960s by Austrian economist Fri ...

in 2010 and is a member of th
Aspen Economic Strategy Group
and Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a member of th
Economic Advisory Panel for the New York Federal Reserve Bank
and Scientific Committee for th
International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies

Personal life

Forbes is married and has three children. She ran the Boston Marathon in 2014, for

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...

and earned qualifying time. She ran the

London Marathon The London Marathon is an annual marathon held in London, United Kingdom, and is the 2nd largest annual road race in the UK, after the Great North Run in Newcastle. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically he ...

in 2016.

Honors

Order of the British Empire (Civil) Ribbon

Honorary Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, 2019
Bicentennial Medal
from

to members of the community "for outstanding achievement in any field of endeavor", 2015.

References

External links

MIT web site

Article on Forbes on Bloomberg

Article on Forbes in TheEditorial
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Kristin 1970 births Living people People from Concord, New Hampshire Williams College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni American women economists Morgan Stanley employees World Bank people United States Council of Economic Advisers MIT Sloan School of Management faculty Group of Thirty Economists from New Hampshire 21st-century American economists Honorary Commanders of the Order of the British Empire