Hélène Rey

Hélène Rey (born 1970) is a French economist who serves as Professor at London Business School (LBS). Her work focuses on international trade, financial imbalances, financial crises and the international monetary system.^[1]

The daughter of a teacher and an engineer, Rey was born in Brioude of South-Central France^[2] in 1970, where she lived for the early years of her life, speaking both French and English.

Rey received her undergraduate degree from ENSAE Paris in 1994^[3] and a Master of Science degree in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University the same year. She has Ph.Ds from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and London School of Economics, both in 1998.

After working as a lecturer at LSE 1997–2000 Rey was assistant professor and later professor (2006) at Princeton University where she also worked at Bendheim Center for Finance and Woodrow Wilson School.^[4][5]

Rey was a member of the Conseil d'Analyse Économique which advises the French Prime Minister on economic matters from 2010 to 2012, and since 2012 has been a member of the Commission Economique de la Nation which advises the Finance Minister of France.^[5]

Rey is a regular contributor the French magazine Les Échos.^[5] She became a co-editor of the Annual Review of Economics as of 2019.^[6]

In 2013 Rey became the first woman to win the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, sharing the prize with Thomas Piketty. Rey was also awarded the Inaugural Carl Menger Preis in 2014, the 2015 Prix Edouard Bonnefous, the 2017 Maurice Allais Prize and the 2020 Prix Turgot.^[2]

Rey focuses her research on the determinants and consequences of financial trade and economic imbalances, the theory of financial crisis, and how the international monetary system is organized. Through her research, she has shown that certain countries different gross external asset positions help them predict future financial positions along with their exchange rates.

Rey is credited with ground-breaking research into the structure of international payments and capital flows. By examining the balance sheets of creditor and debtor nations, she offered new insights into relative returns on cross-border investments. She explained her approach in an interview with the Financial Times, which wrote, "She also showed why the US is the world's banker. "We called it 'the US's exorbitant privilege'. The US earns more on external assets than it pays on external liabilities. It has an excess return on the order of 2 per cent ... So it issues a lot of government bonds that are happily bought by the rest of the world."^[7][8]

• Cercle des économistes, Member^[9]
• Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Member of the Advisory Board^[10]
• Centre for European Reform (CER), Member of the Advisory Board^[11]
• French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), Member of the Board (2010-2014)

Rey is married to fellow professor of economics Richard Portes and the couple have a daughter. They live in London.^[2]

• Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2005)
• Germán Bernácer Prize (2006)
• Fellow of the British Academy (2011)
• Birgit Grodal Award (2012)
• Fellow of the European Economic Association (2013)
• Fellow of the Econometric Society (2013)
• Yrjö Jahnsson Award, shared with Thomas Piketty (2013)^[4]
• Named one of 25 brightest young economists by the International Monetary Fund.^[1]

• Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier (2014). "External adjustment, global imbalances and valuation effects". Handbook of International Economics. Vol. 4. pp. 585–645.
• Rey, Hélène (2013). "Comment on "time to ship during financial crises"". In Giavazzi, Francesco; West, Kenneth D. (eds.). NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2012. Chicago, Illinois: National Bureau of Economic Research. pp. 261–263. ISBN 9780226053271.
• Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier (2007). "From World Banker to World Venture Capitalist: U.S. External Adjustment and the Exorbitant Privilege". G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment. doi:10.3386/w11563.

• Rey, Hélène; Portes, Richard (March 2005). "The determinants of cross-border equity flows" (PDF). Journal of International Economics. 65 (2): 269–296. doi:10.1016/j.jinteco.2004.05.002.
• Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier (2007). "International financial adjustment". Journal of Political Economy. 115 (4): 665–703. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.331.4666. doi:10.1086/521966.
• Rey, Hélène; Imbs, Jean M.; Mumtaz, Haroon; Ravn, Morten O. (December 2010). "One TV, one price?". The Scandinavian Journal of Economics. 112 (4). Wiley: 753–781. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9442.2010.01631.x. S2CID 16487106.
• Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier; Truempler, Kai (November 2012). "The financial crisis and the geography of wealth transfers". Journal of International Economics. 88 (2): 266–283. doi:10.1016/j.jinteco.2012.05.008. S2CID 1096559.
• Coeurdacier, Nicolas; Rey, Hélène (2013). "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature. 51 (1): 63–115. doi:10.1257/jel.51.1.63. S2CID 54926472.
• Rey, Hélène; Passari, Evgenia (2015). "Financial Flows and the International Monetary System". Economic Journal. 125 (584): 675–698. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12268. S2CID 9067115.

• Rey, Hélène (May 2015). "Dilemma not trilemma: the global financial cycle and monetary policy independence". NBER Working Paper No. 21162. doi:10.3386/w21162.

• Clift, Jeremy (June 2015). "People in economics: Agent provocateur". Finance & Development. 52 (2). International Monetary Fund: 4–7. Interview with Hélène Rey. Pdf.

• Hélène Rey publications indexed by Google Scholar