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Leavey School of Business Santa Clara University
Department ofEconomics

Popper, Helen

Helen Popper

Professor, Economics

Curriculum Vitae (CV)


Professor Popper is an expert in international economics and finance. She is the incoming 2020 Emerging Ethics Scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; she is a Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research in Singapore, a former Visiting Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, and a former Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. She is a Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research in Singapore, a former Visiting Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, and a former Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. 

She currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and on the Advisory Board of the DIAGRAM Center, and she has served on the Board of Directors of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. She has consulted for the World Bank and the Federal Reserve, as well as in the private sector, and she has held visiting positions at the University of California at Berkeley, the Bank of Mexico, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In her role as SCU’s Executive MBA Global Theme Coordinator, she has reviewed scores of foreign expansion plans for Silicon Valley businesses.

Professor Popper teaches and conducts research in international macroeconomics and finance, and in applied data analysis. She has published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the European Economic Review, and the Journal of International Money and Finance. She writes op-eds and contributes to public policy discussions in venues such as VOX and National Public Radio.

Professor Popper also currently serves as Associate Dean of the Leavey School of Business, and she has been the Faculty Director of Graduate Business Programs, the Faculty Director of Undergraduate Business Programs, and the Chair of the Department of Economics. In these roles, she has shepherded significant face-to-face and online curricular innovations.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.


Areas of Expertise

  • Foreign Exchange Risk
  • International Financial Markets
  • Information and Risk
  • Monetary Policy
  • Central Banking
  • European Monetary Union
  • East Asian Financial Markets
  • Economic Growth
  • University Governance
  • Business School Programs
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