INVITED SPEAKERS – By session
Thursday, November 16
1. On causal inference and latent variables
a. Ivan Canay
Professor Canay is the HSBC Research Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, where he holds the prestigious position of co-editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, following his undergraduate studies in economics at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. His research interests span a wide range of econometric theory and its applications. A significant portion of his work focuses on inference in partially identified models, approximate randomization tests, randomized controlled experiments with covariate-adaptive randomization, and models with clustered data. Additionally, Professor Canay has contributed to empirical likelihood, instrument selection in GMM settings, testability of completeness conditions, and quantile regression, among other areas. Notably, his recent research has been dedicated to developing new tools for the regression discontinuity design (RDD) and identifying racial bias through outcome tests in Roy models.
b. Andrew Chesher
Andrew Chesher is the William Stanley Jevons Professor of Economics and Economic Measurement at the Department of Economics, University College London and Director of the ESRC Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (CeMMAP) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association, and Fellow of the British Academy.
2. On the implementation of environmental policies
a. Paulina Oliva
Professor Oliva is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2009. Her expertise lies in the fields of environmental economics and development, with a particular focus on the relationship between air pollution and health and the effectiveness of environmental policies in the developing world. Her research utilizes a variety of microeconometric techniques to examine individual incentives and the human impacts of air pollution. In addition to her current position, Professor Oliva has held various academic roles throughout her career. She served as Vice Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Southern California. Prior to joining USC, she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. She also worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
b. Adriana Piazza
Professor Piazza is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the Universidad de Chile. Her research interests lie in theoretical economics and operations research, with a particular focus on the sustainable management of natural resources. Her articles have been published in journals such as Management Science, Journal of Economic Theory, and Mathematics of Operations Research, and she has been the principal investigator of several Fondecyt-ANID projects. Professor Piazza obtained her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Montpellier 2 and the University of Chile in 2007. Prior to joining the Department of Economics, she was a faculty member at Universidad Federico Santa María and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.
3. Productivity in the global economy
a. Laura Alfaro
Professor Alfaro has been the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School since 1999. She is also a Faculty Research Associate in the NBER International Finance and Macroeconomics Program and the International Trade and Investment Program. She served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010–2012. She is co-editor of the Journal of International Economics and the World Bank Research Observer. Professor Alfaro is the author of multiple articles published in leading academic journals such as the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, and Journal of Political Economy, among others. Most of her research is related to the field of international economics, in particular international capital flows, foreign direct investment, sovereign debt, trade, and emerging markets. She is a member of the Latin-American Financial Regulatory Committee (CLAAF) and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) policy committee, inter alia. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a B.A. in Economics with Honors from the Universidad de Costa Rica, and a 'Licenciatura' from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she graduated with the highest honors.
b. Diego Restuccia
Professor Restuccia is a professor at the University of Toronto, where he holds the position of Canada Research Chair (on leave). He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Minnesota and obtained a master’s degree in economics from the same institution. Additionally, he holds a B.A. in Economics from Universidad Católica Andres Bello in Caracas, Venezuela. Professor Restuccia's primary research interests lie in the fields of macroeconomics and economic development, where he delves into the intricate dynamics of these areas. He serves as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and he currently serves as an editor of the Review of Economic Dynamics. Professor Restuccia was honored with the distinction of delivering the State of the Art Lecture for the Canadian Economic Association in 2017.