Hélène Rey
French economist
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.
Quotes
edit"Inflation, Sanctions and Debt Distress" (2022)
edit- Debt distress, inflation and hunger in the world are linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- When it comes to risky assets (and emerging markets debt is considered a risky asset) risk and specifically credit risk gets priced in the yields of bonds issued by this country. When times are good, investors seem to be optimistic and the price of risk is very low across all kinds of assets. But when liquidity starts to be withdrawn, the price of these risky bonds in emerging or low-income countries goes up.
- More vulnerable countries have a much harder time borrowing. Sometimes, financial actors do not want to lend at all and we are faced with episodes of "sudden stops" of capital flows into emerging markets with no way to roll over the debt.
- China acts according to its interests, including on climate: short-term economic factors may dictate over anything else.
- The risk of social unrest in many countries should not be underestimated.
- When the banking system goes down the drain, the economy goes down with it (2008 is still very fresh in our minds).
