Laura Alfaro is Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. 

She is Co-Editor of the Journal of International Economics and the World Bank Research Observer, as well as Vice-President of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA). She co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Growth. Alfaro is also a Research Associate at NBER’s International Finance and Macroeconomics Program (IMF) and the International Trade and Investment Program (ITI). She also co-chairs NBER’s Economics of Supply Chains conference in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security. 

Between 2010 and 2012, Alfaro was Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica. 

Alfaro is a member of the Latin American Committee on Macroeconomic and Financial Issues (CLAAF) and the Policy Committee of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and is a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, among other academic and professional positions. 

Alfaro holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California (UCLA). She holds a BA in Economics from the University of Costa Rica in 1992 and a BA from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1994.