Carmen Reinhart, Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School, has been awarded the prestigious King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics. The prize recognizes influential Spanish or Latin American economists.

The award committee, headed by the governor of the Bank of Spain, recognized Reinhart’s influence in both academic and policy fields. It highlighted her research in macroeconomics and international finance.  Her contributions to the understanding of the causes and effects of international capital flows on financial crises, such as the U.S. sub-prime crisis, the Asian financial crisis, and the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, mentioning her book, written with Kenneth Rogoff, This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

Reinhart was born in Cuba and came to the United States as a child. Before joining Harvard Kennedy School, Reinhart was the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and professor of economics and director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland. Reinhart held positions as chief economist and vice president at the investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1980s. She also spent several years at the International Monetary Fund. Reinhart is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers and Council on Foreign Relations. She has served on numerous editorial boards, has testified before Congress, and was listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance in 2011, and Thompson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. She received her PhD from Columbia University.

The King Juan Carlos Prize, awarded every two years, was created in 1986 by the Jose Celma Prieto Foundation.  The award is presented by the king in a ceremony at the Bank of Spain.