Welcome!

I am the academic director of the Penn Initiative for the Study of Markets hosted at the University of Pennsylvania's Economics Department---where I also am a Senior Fellow. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University, and my Bachelors degree in Economics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

My research interests lie at the intersection between economic history, new institutional economics and development economics. My research dwells on the institutional properties that create incentives for political union and fragmentation (why some nations are large and some small); I pay special focus on the case of the Spanish Empire in the 16th-19th century (and the process of fragmentation that led to the creation of the Latin American countries). In my Job Market Paper I show how pre-Hispanic settlements in Mexico survived Spanish colonization and formed the basis of current municipal boundaries within the country.

Other research projects I have, follow my general interest in understanding the deep historical elements behind development issues in societies.