The daughter of a teacher and an engineer, Rey was born in Brioude of South-Central France[2] in 1970, where she lived for the early years of her life, speaking both French and English.
In 2013 Rey became the first woman to win the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, sharing the prize with Thomas Piketty. Rey was also awarded the Inaugural Carl Menger Preis in 2014, the 2015 Prix Edouard Bonnefous, the 2017 Maurice Allais Prize and the 2020 Prix Turgot.[2]
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."[7][8]
Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier (2014). "External adjustment, global imbalances and valuation effects". Handbook of International Economics. Vol. 4. pp. 585–645.
Rey, Hélène; Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier (2007). "From World Banker to World Venture Capitalist: U.S. External Adjustment and the Exorbitant Privilege". G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment. doi:10.3386/w11563.