Though he considers himself a New Yorker and his wife is involved in New York City politics, Rubin moved to Miami, Fla., at age nine where he attended public schools.

When Rubin arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1956, the economics concentrator was intimidated by the College’s academic demands.

Rubin remembers attending an English class his sophomore year in which he was unfamiliar with authors most of his peers already knew.

“For me, it was quite daunting,” Rubin said. “Harvard was a very different world. There were people there who had far more highly developed academic backgrounds than I did.”

Despite his initial fears, Rubin excelled in academics. A Winthrop resident who graduated summa cum laude, Rubin participated in intramural athletics and enjoyed the “usual lounging around wasting time that college students do.”

He has been interested in the developing world and international economics since the beginning of his career, and wrote his undergraduate thesis on inflation and its relationship to economic development in Brazil.

“Brazil has long been called a country of the future and it seemed to me a fascinating place. I was bedeviled at the time by the interesting question of the effect inflation had on the country,” Rubin said.

Though accepted to Harvard Law School, Rubin attended only three days before deciding, “I didn’t want to do this.”