UMass Amherst Economist Isabella Weber Named to ‘MarketWatch 50’ and Capital’s ‘Top 40 Under 40’ Lists

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Isabella Weber, associate professor of economics, has been named to “The MarketWatch 50,” recognizing the most influential people in markets and, for a second time, to the “Top 40 Under 40” by Capital, Germany’s most widely read business publication. These are the latest in a string of honors for Weber, who was named a 2023 TIME100 Next emerging leader earlier this year.

Weber burst onto the international stage nearly two years ago when she authored an op-ed for The Guardian explaining how the history of strategic price controls could inform the fight against inflation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, her intervention sharply divided the economic community and Weber faced a wave of blistering online harassment. However, as inflation persisted and it became clear after the Russian attack on Ukraine that inflation could not be stabilized by increasing interest rates alone, many critics eventually came to embrace Weber’s views.

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Weber’s contributions helped to shift the debate on inflation and redefine post-pandemic global economic policy, as chronicled by The New Yorker.

Weber is among the likes of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, investing titan Warren Buffet and music superstar Taylor Swift on the MarketWatch list of people who have the influence to move markets, affect trade and set policy. The publication has branded Weber a “market maven.”

“Isabella Weber’s idea that corporate profit-taking has helped drive the current inflationary era went from the fringes of economic policy discussion to the mainstream in 2023,” MarketWatch says. “Weber has forced market participants to question their assumptions about inflation and transformed the way some policymakers are trying to curb it.”

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Capital’s “Top 40 Under 40” honors young leaders who have already made remarkable achievements in politics, business, management and society in Germany and beyond. Weber’s inclusion for the second consecutive year is a testament to the ongoing importance of her work as an international authority on systemically important prices and as a member of an expert commission assembled by the German government last year to respond to an energy crisis precipitated by spiking gas prices. Weber was one of the architects of Germany’s gas price stabilization policy. 

Other honors to Weber’s credit include being named to Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Bloomberg 50 ‘Ones to Watch’” list for 2022 and listed among Germany’s “100 Women of the Year” for 2022 by FOCUS magazine.

Weber is also a research associate and research leader in China studies with the UMass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center at Harvard University.