Our Management Team
Laura Alfaro Maykall is the Chief Economist and Economic Counselor of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). She started in this role on June 1, 2025, after taking a leave from Harvard Business School, where she is the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration.
She served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010 to 2012. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of International Economics and the World Bank Research Observer, President of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), and Faculty Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Ms. Alfaro Maykall has authored numerous articles on international economics, capital flows, foreign direct investment (FDI), sovereign debt, and trade. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she received the Dissertation Fellowship award. She received a B.A. degree in economics from the Universidad de Costa Rica and a 'Licenciatura' from the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile. Ms. Laura Alfaro Maykall is a citizen of Costa Rica and the United States.
Latest Studies at the IDB
Multinational corporations (MNCs) are the dominant institutions for creating and distributing knowledge across borders. Their activities generate geopolitical externalities when cross-border knowledge spillovers enhance a rival states strategic capabilities in ways neither internalized by firms nor priced by markets. This review examines MNC-mediated knowledge creation and diffusion and the governance regime that has emerged in response. We distinguish three types of knowledge codified, tacit, and organizational that differ in their transmission channels and governability, and trace how each is created within MNC networks, diffused within and across firm boundaries, and targeted by policy instruments.
Trade and industrial policies, while primarily intended to support domestic industries, may unintentionally stimulate technological progress abroad. We document this mechanism in the case of rare earth elements (REEs)--critical inputs for manufacturing at the knowledge frontier, with low elasticity of substitution, inelastic supply, and high production and processing concentration. To assess the importance of REEs across industries, we construct an input-output table that includes disaggregated REE inputs. Using REE-related patents categorized by a large language model, sectoral TFP data, trade data, and physical and chemical substitution properties of REEs, we show that the introduction of REE export restrictions by China led to a global surge in innovation and exports in REE-intensive downstream sectors outside of China. To rationalize these findings and quantify the global impact of the adverse
REE supply shock, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium model of trade and directed technological change. We also propose a structural method to estimate sectoral input substitution elasticities for REEs from patent data and find REEs to be complementary inputs. Under endogenous technologies and with complementary inputs, input supply restrictions on REEs induce a surge in REE-enhancing innovation and lead to an expansion of REE-intensive downstream sectors.
Latest Blog Posts from Laura
Powerful ideas, rigorous evidence, and strategic analysis that accelerate high‑impact development across Latin America and the Caribbean.
The research team generates innovative ideas that support the strategic policy agenda of the IDB and its member countries to achieve inclusive and sustainable economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Discover more of the IDB’s research in the Publications Catalog, the Bank’s open-access repository.
We design and enable innovative and effective solutions that promote inclusive and sustainable development in the region.
We work to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through financial and technical support for our borrowing member countries, we work to achieve lasting development gains across a wide range of sectors.