Kristin Forbes

Kristin J. Forbes (born August 21, 1970) is an American macroeconomist and policy adviser currently serving as the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Global Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Forbes' research focuses on international macroeconomics, monetary economics, and macroprudential policy. Alongside her academic appointments, she sits on the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee and is on advisory boards to the International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements.

Early life and education Forbes was born on August 21, 1970, in Concord, New Hampshire, the eldest of three children. Forbes attended Concord High School and in 1988 was selected as a Presidential Scholar, earning a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet President Ronald Reagan in the White House Rose Garden.

After graduating from high school, Forbes enrolled at Williams College, taking first-year courses in astrophysics, economics, religion, and psychology. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1992, receiving a BA in economics

After completing her undergraduate studies, Forbes joined the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley as an analyst. , including the crisis in Argentina and financial stability in Latin America. As a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, Forbes focused on international issues, including the economic ascendance of China, exchange rates, capital flows, Argentina and even space. She left the CEA in 2005, returning to her academic position. , replacing Ben Broadbent, who was promoted to Deputy Governor of Monetary Policy. She discussed this tradeoff in her first public speech as a Monetary Policy Committee member, delivered at an event at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

In later years, Forbes would become an advocate for interest rate rises, arguing that pessimism about the state of the global economy was overstated. In response to the 2016 Brexit referendum, Forbes warned about rushing to cut interest rates until there was more information on the economic impact. In August 2016, she joined a unanimous majority of the Monetary Policy Committee to lower rates from 0.5% to 0.25%. but voted against the 6-3 majority decision to restart purchases of government bonds and was the only member to vote against starting a new program to purchase corporate bonds. Interest rates, as set by the UK Monetary Policy Committee, 1997 to the presentIn the months after this vote, Forbes emphasized in public statements that uncertainty created by Brexit was less of a drag on growth than was previously expected, and advocated against further monetary stimulus and rate cuts. In June 2017, Forbes joined Ian McCafferty and Michael Saunders to vote in favor of an interest rate increase, bringing the Bank of England closer to a rate increase than any time since 2007. The 5–3 vote was a surprise to analysts, and led to a sharp increase in the value of the Pound. She was replaced by Silvana Tenreyro, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. In leaving her role, Forbes criticized the Bank of England and other central banks, arguing that the high public profile of central bankers discouraged aggressive action against inflation. She also argued that an overload of work for senior economists discouraged deviations from baseline models and analysis. In 2020 she replaced Barry Eichengreen as the convener of the Bellagio Group.

Monetary Policy, Rate Cycles, and Inflation Forbes's research addresses how central banks respond to global forces affecting domestic inflation. Her 2026 book The Art of Monetary Policy (MIT Press) applies strategic frameworks to monetary policy under uncertainty. With Ha and Kose, she developed "Rate Cycles," a classification system for monetary policy cycles. Her empirical work argues that domestic inflation is increasingly driven by global factors including commodity prices, supply chains, and world economic slack, and that conventional Phillips curve models do not adequately capture these influences.

Financial Contagion and Crisis Transmission With Roberto Rigobon, Forbes developed a methodology to correct for bias in measuring stock market comovements during crises. Their findings suggest most crises spread through linkages present across all market conditions rather than through crisis-specific channels. Using firm-level data from over 10,000 companies in 46 countries, she identified trade flows and third-market competition as determinants of country vulnerability to financial contagion, finding little evidence of a generalized credit crunch driving contagion.

Capital Flows and Exchange Rates With Frank Warnock, Forbes developed a framework for analyzing capital flow waves that distinguishes between the behavior of foreign investors and domestic residents. Related work examines how capital flows affect exchange rates and consumer prices (pass-through) and why this relationship varies over time.

Honors and awards

Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), awarded by Queen Elizabeth II (2019) Generation Next, leading 25 economists under 45 who are “shaping how we think about the global economy,” from Finance & Development (2014) Milken Award for Distinguished Economic Research (2000) Robert Solow Prize for excellence in research and teaching, MIT (1998) Named a “Young Global Leader” (2005) and "Global Leader for Tomorrow" (2003) by the World Economic Forum National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Ford Foundation Fellowship David Wells Prize in Economics: Best economics thesis at Williams College, 1992.

Selected publications

"No Contagion, Only Interdependence: Measuring Stock Market Comovements" (with Roberto Rigobon). Journal of Finance, 57(5), 2223–2261 (2002). “Capital Flow Waves: Surges, Stops, Flight and Retrenchment” (with Frank Warnock). Journal of International Economics, 88(2), 235–251. (2012) "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth." American Economic Review, 90(4), 869–887 (2000). "One Cost of the Chilean Capital Controls: Increased Financial Constraints for Smaller Traded Firms." Journal of International Economics, 71(2), 294–323 (2007). "The Asian Flu and Russian Virus: The International Transmission of Crises in Firm-Level Data." Journal of International Economics, 63(1), 59–92 (2004). “Financial Constraints and Growth: Multinational and Local Firm Responses to Currency Depreciations” (with Mihir Desai and Fritz Foley). Review of Financial Studies 21(6): 2857-2888 (2008). "Bubble Thy Neighbor: Portfolio Effects and Externalities from Capital Controls" (with Marcel Fratzscher and Roland Straub). Journal of International Economics (2016). “The ‘Big C’: Identifying and Mitigating Contagion.” In The Changing Policy Landscape 2012, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, 23–87 (2013) The Shocks Matter: Improving Our Estimates of Exchange Rate Pass-Through” (with Ida Hjortsoe and Tsvetelina Nenova). Journal of International Economics, 114, 255–275. “Heaven or Earth? The Evolving Role of Global Shocks for Domestic Monetary Policy” (with Jongrim Ha and Ayhan Kose). Forthcoming, Journal of Political Economy: Macro (NBER WP 34806).