mathematics

Hélène Rey

Hélène Rey is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hélène Rey rather than just read about it. In short: Hélène Rey OBE (born 1970) is an economist who serves as the Lord Raj Bagri Professor of Economics at London Business School (LBS). Her work focuses on international macroeconomics and finance with an emphasis on international capital flows, exchange rate dynamics, financial imbalances, financial crises and the international monetary system.

Key takeaways

Hélène Rey belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hélène Rey to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hélène Rey from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hélène Rey OBE (born 1970) is an economist who serves as the Lord Raj Bagri Professor of Economics at London Business School (LBS). Her work focuses on international macroeconomics and finance with an emphasis on international capital flows, exchange rate dynamics, financial imbalances, financial crises and the international monetary system. She is internationally known for introducing the concept of the global financial cycle and challenging the Mundellian Trilemma as well as estimating the exorbitant privilege of the United States. Rey is vice-president of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and president of the European Economic Association in 2025. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the British Academy, the European Economic Association, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign correspondent of the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and a foreign honorary member of the American Economic Association. She is also a member of the Group of Thirty, the Bellagio Group, and of the external advisory group to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She was previously a member of the French Haut Conseil de Stabilité Financière, the Conseil d'Analyse Économique, and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution.

Early life and education The daughter of a teacher and an engineer, Rey was born in Brioude in South-Central France in 1970, where she was educated at the Collège et Lycée La Fayette until her baccalaureate. She prepared national competitive scientific exams in the Lycée Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. Rey then received her undergraduate degree from ENSAE Paris in 1994 and a Master of Science degree in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University the same year. She has Ph.Ds from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and London School of Economics, both in 1998.

Career After working as a lecturer at LSE from 1997–2000, Rey was assistant professor and later professor (2006) at Princeton University where she also worked at Bendheim Center for Finance and Woodrow Wilson School. (2000-2006). She also was a visitor at Berkeley and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) from 1999 to 2000. She then became a professor of Economics (2007), and later the Lord Raj Bagri professor of Economics (2016), at the London Business School (LBS), where she teaches today. Rey was a member of the Conseil d'Analyse Économique which advises the French Prime Minister on economic matters from 2010 to 2012, and since 2012 has been a member of the Commission Economique de la Nation which advises the Finance Minister of France. Rey is a regular contributor the French magazine Les Échos. She became a co-editor of the Annual Review of Economics as of 2019.

Economic research Rey focuses her research on the determinants and consequences of financial trade and economic imbalances, the theory of financial crisis, and how the international monetary system is organized. Through her research, she has shown that certain countries different gross external asset positions help them predict future financial positions along with their exchange rates. Rey is credited with ground-breaking research into the structure of international payments and capital flows. By examining the balance sheets of creditor and debtor nations, she offered new insights into relative returns on cross-border investments. She explained her approach in an interview with the Financial Times, which wrote, "She also showed why the US is the world's banker. "We called it 'the US's exorbitant privilege'. The US earns more on external assets than it pays on external liabilities. It has an excess return on the order of 2 per cent ... So it issues a lot of government bonds that are happily bought by the rest of the world."

Other activities Cercle des économistes, Member Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Member of the Advisory Board Centre for European Reform (CER), Member of the Advisory Board French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), Member of the Board (2010-2014) Regular column writer for French newspaper Les Echos

Personal life Rey is married to fellow professor of economics Richard Portes and the couple have a daughter. They live in London.

Awards and recognition Review of Economic Studies Tour (1997) Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Research Fellow (1999-) National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Research Associate (2001-) Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2005) Germán Bernácer Prize (2006) Elected Member of the Council of the European Economic Association (2008-11) Elected Member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society (2008-13) Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council (2010-17) Fellow of the British Academy (2011-) Inaugural Birgit Grodal Award (2012) Fellow of the European Economic Association (2013-) Fellow of the Econometric Society (2013-) First woman to win Yrjö Jahnsson Award, shared with Thomas Piketty (2013) Inaugural Carl Menger Preis (2014) Named one of 25 brightest young economists by the International Monetary Fund. (2014) Prix de la Fondation Edouard Bonnefous de l'Institut de France, Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (2015) Elected Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016-) O.B.E for services to Economics (2016) Grand Prix de l'Économie (2017) Maurice Allais Prize (2017) Elected Foreign Correspondant of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (2018-) Elected Council and Executive Committee Member, Econometric Society (2019-) Prix Turgot (Grand Prix d'Honneur) (2020) Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association (2020-) Vice President of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) (2020-) Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER) Fellow (2022-) Adam Smith Award (National Association of Business Economics) (2023) Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (2024) Bernhard Harms Prize, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (2024) Senior Prize Banque de France and Toulouse School of Economics (2024) President of the European Economic Association (2025)

Selected works

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hélène Rey

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hélène Rey claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hélène Rey before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hélène Rey ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hélène Rey

In research: Hélène Rey appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hélène Rey in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hélène Rey is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, 21st-century French economists, 21st-century French statisticians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hélène Rey outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hélène Rey in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hélène Rey means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hélène Rey out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hélène Rey in simple terms?

Why does Hélène Rey matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hélène Rey?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hélène Rey.