A Cuban woman would be in command of the World Bank finances
Carmen M. Reinhart, Cuban by birth, has just assumed the role of vice president and chief economist of the World Bank.
The World Bank has a new chief economist. / Photo: Wikimedia – umd.edu
The Woman Post | Maria Lourdes Zimmermann
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Leer en español: Una cubana al mando de las finanzas del Banco Mundial
With a PhD from Columbia University, Reinhart is currently a professor of Minos A. Zombanakis of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she was a Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a professor and director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland.
During her career, the Cuban-American economist has worked in numerous roles to address important political challenges such as the one she is taking on today, in the face of the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic and the global economic recession.
Undoubtedly, the decision to appoint Reinhart to the post is related “to her extensive knowledge in understanding and overcoming financial crises in advanced and developing economies, in order to achieve growth and a higher standard of living. ” As assured by the President of the World Bank, David Malpass.
"I am pleased to welcome Carmen to the World Bank Group as we drive our efforts to restore growth and address the urgent debt and recession crises facing many of our client countries," Malpass said in a press release from the organization.
Also read: The 5 richest Latin American women in the world
Regarded among the world's top economists for her publications and scholarly citations, Reinhart has been listed among the Top 50 Most Influential Economists according to Bloomberg, the Top 100 Global Foreign Policy Thinkers, and the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds according to Thomson Reuters. In 2018, she received the Rey Juan Carlos Prize in Economics and the NABE Adam Smith Prize, among others. Her book (with Kenneth S. Rogoff) titled, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, has been translated into more than 20 languages. The new Vice President of the World Bank also won the Paul A. Samuelson Award.
The challenge that Carmen M. Reinhart will have to assume is great, not only due to the economic crisis that the world is currently experiencing due to the pandemic, but also due to its impact on Latin economies and the high level of indebtedness that countries will face, especially considering that before the crisis the region was facing problems of economic growth.
Reinhart is currently replacing economist Penny Goldberg who resigned from her post in March to return to Yale University as a professor and before that Paul Romer, Nobel Prize in Economics who would be in the organization until January 2018.
Two women of great prestige in the economic world have assumed in recent years one of the most important positions in the global economy, that of vice presidents and chief economists of the World Bank.
