Biography

I am a trade economist and I am interested in the effects of public policies on firms’ decisions and their impact on aggregate productivity. My primary fields of interest are international trade and applied macroeconomics.
Between 2009 and 2013, I worked on my PhD at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, under the supervision of Professor Klaus Desmet. After being a visiting PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the spring term 2011, and at Yale University for the winter term 2012, I obtained my PhD in Economics from Universidad Carlos III in June 2013.
My dissertation focuses on the effects of trade and innovation policies on firms’ decisions and their impact on the economy’s productivity and welfare.  In particular, I develop a trade model of heterogeneous firms, where firms make endogenous choices regarding trade and innovation. Different equilibria may arise, depending on the relative costs of trade and innovation. Using firm level data, I calibrate this model to five European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. I show that not only are the equlibria identified quantitatively plausible, but that the impact of trade liberalization on aggregate productivity and welfare, depends crucially on the equilibrium the economy is in.
During my time at UC3M, I have been a teaching assistant for several undergraduate courses, in econometrics, microeconomics and international trade.