Laura Alfaro is Professor at Harvard Business School in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit. She was Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012. She is also Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s International Finance & Macroeconomics Program and the Trade and Investment Program, Faculty Associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and member of CLAAF. Her primary expertise is international economics and in particular international capital flows, foreign direct investment and sovereign debt. Laura Alfaro earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she was recipient of the Dissertation Fellowship award. She received a B.A in economics with honors from the Universidad de Costa Rica in and a 'Licenciatura' from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Chile.

VoxEU Column
You can’t always get what you want: The real exchange rate and manufacturing performance in a world of global value chains
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- Exchange Rates 
- International trade

VoxEU Column
Ownership and power structure: Together at last
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- Industrial organisation

VoxEU Column
On the direct and indirect real effects of credit supply shocks
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- Europe's nations and regions 
- Global crisis

VoxEU Column
Corporate balance sheets in emerging markets: A comparison of the Global Crisis and the Asian Financial Crisis
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- Global crisis 
- Macroeconomic policy
VoxEU Column
Make or buy decisions over upstream and downstream inputs: An investigation of firm boundaries along value chains
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- Industrial organisation 
- International trade