Latin America Trade Expert to Speak at Walton College

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Alberto Trejos, dean of INCAE Business School in San Jose, Costa Rica, and researcher in international trade and development economics, will speak to students, faculty and the public at 9:45 a.m. Thursday, March 30, in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development at the University of Arkansas.

His presentation, “U.S. Trade with Latin America: Perspectives from CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement),” is sponsored by the Sam M. Walton College of Business, the Latin American studies program and the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

INCAE is a private, nonprofit, multinational business school, founded in 1964 by the business community and the governments of the Central American nations. Since its inception it has had the technical supervision of the Harvard Business School. Its master’s and executive training programs and research projects are aimed at educating individuals, from worldwide perspective, to be capable of successfully holding top management positions in Latin America.

Trejos holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been published extensively in top journals and has been a Fulbright Scholar and a National Science Foundation grantee. In addition to leading one of the world’s top business schools, he served as general director the INCAE’s Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development from 1999-2002. He has served as a professor of economics at Northwestern University from 1994-1998. He has been a visiting professor and researcher at the Institut D’Analisi Economica de Barcelona, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Fundacao Getulio Vargas of Rio De Janeiro, and the University of Texas. As the minister of foreign trade for Costa Rica, Trejos led the negotiation of CAFTA and the CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market)-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement.