Karen K. Lewis is a Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, and a Professor of Economics by courtesy at the Economics Department, University of Pennsylvania. She is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA and a Research Fellow for the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, UK.
Professor Lewis obtained her doctorate at the University of Chicago in economics. Prior to joining Wharton, she was an Assistant Professor and then an Associate Professor with tenure at the Stern School of Business, New York University. She has visited on the faculties of Princeton University, INSEAD, Singapore Management University, and Goethe University, Frankfurt. She has also been a consultant at various central banks and international organizations including the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Israel, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the International Monetary Fund. She has served in editorial positions for several academic journals including the American Economic Review and the Journal of International Economics.
Professor Lewis has research and policy interests at the intersection of global financial markets and the macro economy. Her published research addresses global market integration, macroeconomic policy, and asset pricing implications from expectations of disasters and rare events. Currently, she is working on exchange rate inefficiencies and the impact of rising government debt on countries worldwide. She credits her childhood upbringing in Paraguay with her longstanding motivation to understand international economic policy.