Staff at the Research Department
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Lawrence Jeff Johnson serves as Director OIC of the Research Department. The focus of his work relates to the Future of Work and Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to this appointment, he served as ILO Country Office Director in the Philippines 2010-2015 and the Chief of the ILO Employment Trends between 1998 and 2010. Prior to joining the ILO, he served as an Economist with the United States Department of Labor for ten years.
Publications
Maria-Luz Vega, Senior Adviser for the Research Department, joined the ILO in 1989 as an associated expert in labour law and labour legislation in Geneva. Prior to joining the ILO she worked as a Labour and social security inspector at the Ministry of labour and Social Security in her home country Spain and has a Diplome d’Etudes Superieures en Droit du travail from the University of Geneva. From 2015-2016 she worked as a Special Adviser for the Regional office-Europe and Central-Asia and then from 2016-2019 as a Coordinator for the Future of Work Initiative. Maria-Luz has published over 40 publications, her main areas of competence are: Labour law, industrial relations, human rights, labour administration, labour inspection, OSH, international ILO standards and Future of work.
Soulayma Zayed is a Department Secretary, and Assistant to the Director. She holds a University degree in Advanced Journalism and Political Science, from the American University. She joined the Research Department in 2017. Prior to that, Soulayma worked as Focal Point for the Regional Office for the Arab States, as Assistant to the Regional Director and Liaison Officer between headquarters and the field. Prior to that, she worked as a journalist in the Swiss Journal PME Magazine, a journal specialised in economy and small and medium enterprises.
Naren Prasad is a Senior Economist. He coordinates the ILO’s Annual International/Regional Training Course on Labour and Social Policies for Decent Work and heads the Department Support Unit dealing with the programme and budget of the department. He has a wide experience working as an economist with various United Nations agencies in different regions. Naren has published extensively on issues of social policy, employment and labour market, small island countries, middle class and privatization of public services. He hails from Fiji and he holds a PhD in Economics (University of Paris II-Panthéon Assas).
Thuy Nguyen Couture is a Funds Control Officer of the department, looking after programme, budget, finance and human resources. Thuy hails from Vietnam, and she studied management, marketing, accounting and Swiss law in Geneva. She’s been working at the ILO since 1999, where she first worked on the French version of the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. She then moved to the Department Support Unit of the International Institute of Labour Studies. Fascinated by design, she learned InDesign and handled the typesetting, layout and covers of flagship publications.
Verónica Escudero joined the ILO in 2008 and is the acting Chief of the Labour Market Trends and Policy Evaluation Unit. Prior to this, she worked at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva and at the Macroeconomic and Financial Consulting firm Multienlace in her home country Ecuador. Her current research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of labour market policies on job quality and social conditions and unveiling whether leveraging complementarities between policies can foster their beneficial effect. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Paris School of Economics and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
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Hannah Liepmann joined the ILO Research Department in 2018 and works as an economist in the Labour Market Trends and Policy Evaluation Unit. She is particularly interested in studying the integration of marginalized demographic groups into employment. She obtained her PhD in economics from Humboldt-University Berlin, where she also worked as a research assistant within the Collaborative Research Center “Rationality and Competition”. In addition, Hannah has been a visiting researcher at the Institute for Research on Labour and Employment at UC Berkeley as well as the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg.
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Santo Milasi is an Economist, whose work largely focuses on the Trends series of the ILO flagship publication World Employment and Social Outlook. In particular, Santo’s research contribution centres on forecasting labour market indicators, carrying out macro-econometric analyses and developing policy recommendations. His other research interests include the determinants and consequences of income inequality, tax reforms and fiscal policy at large. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2015.
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Daniel Samaan is a Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. He has been working on the impacts of globalization and technology on international labor markets. Recent publications include analyses on the effectiveness of labor provisions in free trade agreements, and research for the Future of Work Initiative of the ILO, discussing the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the world of work.
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Pelin Sekerler Richiardi has been a Research Officer in Economics at the ILO since 2010. She conducts research on labour market implications of issues related to innovation in firms, international trade, social protection, and inequality. Between 2013 and 2014, she was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where her research focused on developing multidimensional statistical indicators of welfare. Pelin holds a PhD in economics obtained jointly from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where she also taught economics.
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Elizabeth Echeverría Manrique is a Research Officer on Labour Law at the ILO since 2015. She conducts research on labour standards, private compliance initiatives, and stakeholder involvement in trade agreements. Prior to joining the ILO, she was a Senior Associate specializing in labour law and litigation at Mexican law firm; and she taught employment law at the University of Monterrey. Elizabeth holds a LL.M. from Heidelberg University and the University of Chile, a Master’s Degree in Labour Law from Universidad Regiomontana and a Law degree from Tecnológico de Monterrey.
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Carla Henry (Senior Technical Specialist) is a development economist who has worked for the ILO since 2002. Her current research interests include vulnerable groups in economic transformation, the role of agricultural work in development, and labour rights in agriculture. Prior to joining the Research Department in 2016, she was the ILO’s senior evaluation officer.
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Dorothea Hoehtker a historian and Senior Researcher. She holds a PhD from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and has previously worked for the German Forced Labour Compensation Programme (GFLCP). She joined the ILO in 2009 and is currently responsible for academic research and collaborations in the framework of the ILO Century Project.
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Guillaume Delautre joined the ILO in 2015 under the France-ILO agreement on research and in relation with the Future of work initiative. His research mostly deals with global value chains, manufacturing and corporate social responsibilities. Guillaume also takes part to the organization of the series of international conferences “les Entretiens France-BIT” (Paris, Collège de France). Guillaume worked from 2006 to 2015 for the French ministries of labour and social affairs as an economist and regularly represented his country in different intergovernmental and multilateral forums (EU, OECD, ILO and G20).
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Irmgard Nübler is a Senior Economist. She is leading the research program on technology productive transformation and jobs. In previous capacities in the ILO she was responsible for developing work programs on Skills development and apprenticeship systems, and on Industrial policies and capabilities for job creation. Before joining the ILO, she was a Professor of Economics at the Free University of Berlin and conducted research, among others, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi. She holds a PhD in Economics from the Free University of Berlin.
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Tzehainesh Teklè is the Managing Editor of the International Labour Review. She has been working with the ILO since 2001 and has held positions at the ILO headquarters, the ILO Dakar Office and the ILO’s International Training Centre. She is a lawyer with research and teaching experience in the field of international and comparative labour law, human rights law and anti-discrimination law. Her experience include the management of research and publication projects. She has also been Visiting Fellow in the Law Department of the European University Institute, at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and at Stellenbosch University.
She holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy).
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Lola Montero Cué has been in charge of the Spanish edition of the International Labour Review since 2012. She holds an MA in Linguistics, a DAS in Learning Psychology (with a focus on the comprehension of social and political concepts) and a postgraduate degree in publishing. Before joining the department, she worked as a freelance translator in the UN system and as an adult trainer and consultant in informal contexts. She has also coordinated Spanish translation teams at the International Labour Conference.
Gaëlle Bossi is a translator and editor. She holds a diploma in translation and a certificate of terminology from the École de traduction et d’interprétation of the University of Geneva. She joined the Research Department in 2015 as the senior French editor for the International Labour Review. Prior to that, she was a freelance translator working for various international organisations and private clients and specializing in employment issues, human rights, sociological research and surveys. She also worked for the University of Geneva as teaching assistant.
Ken Chamuva Shawa is a Senior Economist at the ILO's Regional Office for Africa. He supports the development and implementation of policy frameworks, leads the work on future of work, and coordinates regional research for the Africa region. His research interests include the macroeconomics of labour markets, saving and investment, industry and trade, debt, the growth-environment nexus, and agricultural policy. Prior to joining the ILO, he worked at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, the COMESA and the African Union-IBAR. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Nairobi.
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Hugo Ñopo is a Regional Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Lima, Peru. Previously he was Senior Researcher at Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE), Lead Economist and Researcher at the Inter-American Development Bank, Assistant Professor at Middlebury College and consultant for different multilateral development institutions. He holds a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University, a Masters in Mathematical Economics from Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada (Brazil), and bachelor degrees in Mathematics and Systems Engineering.
Hugo actively maintains a broad research agenda based in two main topics: education and labor markets, with a special focus on gender and ethnic inequalities. His research has been published in different specialized academic journals and books (http://ideas.repec.org/e/pno16.html). Hugo is also a sporadic op-ed collaborator in various media outlets. Currently, he is also a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, and board member of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).
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Journal articles
Christian Viegelahn works as Economist at the Regional Economic and Social Analysis (RESA) Unit in the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. Christian joined ILO’s Bangkok Office in August 2018, after having spent several years at ILO’s Research Department in Geneva. Christian’s research focuses on trade, global supply chains, macroeconomics and the labour market. He also managed the production of new labour market indicators, including global estimates of the number of workers in different types of firms. Christian holds a PhD in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Before joining the ILO in 2011, he worked for the OECD.
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- Department Support
- Labour Market Trends and Policy Evaluation
- Macroeconomic Policy and Jobs
- Globalization, Competitiveness and Labour Standards
- Work Income and Equity
- Changing World of Work
- International Labour Review
- Officers in the field
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Publications
- Global Employment Trends Reports 2003-2010
- World Employment Report 2004-2005
- Key Indicators of the Labour Market 1999-2010
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Soulayma Zayed is a Department Secretary, and Assistant to the Director. She holds a University degree in Advanced Journalism and Political Science, from the American University. She joined the Research Department in 2017. Prior to that, Soulayma worked as Focal Point for the Regional Office for the Arab States, as Assistant to the Regional Director and Liaison Officer between headquarters and the field. Prior to that, she worked as a journalist in the Swiss Journal PME Magazine, a journal specialised in economy and small and medium enterprises.
Department Support
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Thuy Nguyen Couture is a Funds Control Officer of the department, looking after programme, budget, finance and human resources. Thuy hails from Vietnam, and she studied management, marketing, accounting and Swiss law in Geneva. She’s been working at the ILO since 1999, where she first worked on the French version of the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. She then moved to the Department Support Unit of the International Institute of Labour Studies. Fascinated by design, she learned InDesign and handled the typesetting, layout and covers of flagship publications.
Labour Market Trends and Policy Evaluation Unit
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Recent publications:
- What works: Promoting pathways to decent work, Studies on growth with equity series, ILO, 2019.
- Active Labour Market Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis, in The Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 55, 2019, No. 12, pp. 2644-2661.
- Effectiveness of Active Labor Market Tools in Conditional Cash Transfers programmes: Evidence from Argentina, in World Development, Vol. 94, June 2017, pp. 422-447.
- For other publications visit: www.escuderoveronica.com
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Recent publications:
- What works: Promoting pathways to decent work, Studies on growth with equity series, ILO, 2019.
- The Impact of a Negative Labor Demand Shock on Fertility – Evidence from the Fall of the Berlin Wall, in Labour Economics, Vol. 54, 2018, pp. 210-224.
Santo Milasi is an Economist, whose work largely focuses on the Trends series of the ILO flagship publication World Employment and Social Outlook. In particular, Santo’s research contribution centres on forecasting labour market indicators, carrying out macro-econometric analyses and developing policy recommendations. His other research interests include the determinants and consequences of income inequality, tax reforms and fiscal policy at large. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2015.
Recent publications:
- Top marginal taxation and economic growth. Applied Economics, with R.J. Waldmann
- World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2017
- World Employment and Social Outlook 2016: Transforming jobs to end poverty
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Macroeconomic Policy and Jobs Unit
Ekkehard Ernst is Chief of Unit, overseeing work related to the Future of Work Initiative and analysing alternative scenarios for jobs and working conditions. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and organizes a yearly summer academy where he gives hands-on advice on how to use macro-economic models to analyse labour market challenges. Prior to joining ILO he worked at the OECD and the European Central Bank. He holds a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.Recent publications:
- Debt Deflation, Financial Market Stress and Regime Change – Evidence from Europe Using MRVAR, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2017, Vol. 81, pp. 115-139 (together with Alexander Haidar and Willi Semmler)
- Understanding unemployment flows, in Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2011, Vol. 27/2, pp. 268-294 (jointly with Uma Rani)
- Global dynamics in a model with search and matching in labor and capital markets, in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2010, Vol. 34/9, pp. 1651-1679 (jointly with Willi Semmler)
Recent publications:
- Countercyclical capital rules for small open economies, Journal of Macroeconomics, In Press (with Daragh Clancy).
- Fiscal forecast errors: Governments versus independent agencies?, European Journal of Political Economy, 2013, Vol. 32(C), pp. 285-299 (with Javier J. Pérez);
- The composition effects of tax-based consolidations on income inequality, ILO Research Department Working Paper, 2017, Nr. 19 (with Gabriele Ciminelli, Ekkehard Ernst, and Massimo Giuliodori).
Daniel Samaan is a Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. He has been working on the impacts of globalization and technology on international labor markets. Recent publications include analyses on the effectiveness of labor provisions in free trade agreements, and research for the Future of Work Initiative of the ILO, discussing the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the world of work.
Globalization, Competitiveness and Labour Standards
Marva Corley-Coulibaly is the Chief of the Globalization, Competitiveness and Labour Standards unit. Her current research focuses on trade, global supply chains and labour standards, enterprises and service economy. She also manages two research projects on labour provisions in trade and investment arrangements. Prior to joining the ILO, Marva was a Senior Economist at the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York. She also worked as an economist for the United States’ Department of Labor in Washington, DC. She holds a PhD in economics from Howard University in Washington, DC.Recent publications:
- World Employment and Social Outlook: Sustainable enterprises and jobs – Formal enterprises and decent work
- Assessment of Labour Provisions in Trade and Investment Arrangements
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Elizabeth Echeverría Manrique is a Research Officer on Labour Law at the ILO since 2015. She conducts research on labour standards, private compliance initiatives, and stakeholder involvement in trade agreements. Prior to joining the ILO, she was a Senior Associate specializing in labour law and litigation at Mexican law firm; and she taught employment law at the University of Monterrey. Elizabeth holds a LL.M. from Heidelberg University and the University of Chile, a Master’s Degree in Labour Law from Universidad Regiomontana and a Law degree from Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Recent publications:
- Corporate Social Responsibility in International Trade and Investment Agreements: Implications for States, Business and Workers
- Handbook of Assessment of Labour Provisions in Trade and Investment Arrangements
Work Income and Equity Unit
Catherine Saget (Chief of Unit) has joined the ILO as a Young Professional in 1998. She has contributed to the setting up of a unit on wages within the ILO and has worked on employment policy at times of economic crisis. As an Economist with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 2006 and 2007, she participated in the OECD thematic review on youth employment policies. She holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence (Italy).Recent publications:
- "Employment policy in the International Development Agenda and its relevance in India" in Employment Policy in Emerging Economies: The Indian Case, Edited by Elizabeth Hill and Amitendu Palit (2018, forthcoming) Routledge, pp. 25-41
- Inventory of labour market policy measures in the EU 2008–13: The crisis and beyond
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- Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership”, with A. Izurieta, 2017, Development and Change, forthcoming.
Recent publications:
- Sustainable Development and Disasters” in Research Handbook on Disasters and International Law, edited by S. C. Breau, and K. L.H. Samuel, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016, pp. 177-203.
- Human Rights and Development in International Law, Routledge (2016).
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- Linking jobs in global supply chains to demand, ILO Research Paper No. 16
- Assessment of labour provisions in trade and investment arrangements
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- Tajikistan addresses the gender inequality problems (in Russian). International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) Bridges, 2017, Volume 10 (1)
Changing World of Work unit
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Recent publications:
- The future of work in African agriculture: Trends and drivers of change, ILO Research Department Working Paper, 2017, No. 25
- Upgrading agricultural work: A comparative analysis of voluntary certification schemes, ILO Research Department Working Paper, 2018, No. 24 (with Anouk Pechevy)
- An operational method for assessing the poverty outreach performance of development policies and projects: Results of case studies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
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Recent publications:
- A la rencontre de l’Europe au travail. Récits de voyages d’Albert Thomas (1920–1932) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne/OIT, 2015). Co-editor, with Sandrine Kott.
- Women’s ILO. Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards, and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Brill/ILO forthcoming). Co-editor, with Eileen Boris and Susan Zimmermann.
- Managed the historical publication projects for the ILO Centenary in 2019: Daniel Maul. 2019. The International Labour Organization. 100 Years of Global Social Policy. Berlin, Geneva: De Gruyter, ILO. It is available in an electronic format in English, French and Spanish
- ILO.2019. If you want justice, cultivate peace. Geneva: International Labour Office. It is available as a hard copy in English, French and Spanish.
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Recent publications:
- Uneven practices in voluntary labour commitments, ILO, Research Department, Working Paper No. 20, 2017
- The distribution of value added among firms and countries: the case of the ICT manufacturing sector, ILO, Research Department, Working paper, No. 16, 2017
- Le modèle dual allemand : caractéristiques et évolutions de l’apprentissage en Allemagne, document d’étude DARES, N°185, Ministère du travail, 2014
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Recent publications:
- New Technologies, Innovation, and the Future of Jobs, (forthcoming 2018), in Eva Paus (ed.). The new technological revolution: What future for jobs and Livelihoods? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Robots and productive transformation: Opportunities for middle income countries (Integration and Trade, IADB 2017).
- Transforming economies: Making industrial policies work for growth, jobs and development (ILO, 2014) (co-editor)
International Labour Review
Tzehainesh Teklè is the Managing Editor of the International Labour Review. She has been working with the ILO since 2001 and has held positions at the ILO headquarters, the ILO Dakar Office and the ILO’s International Training Centre. She is a lawyer with research and teaching experience in the field of international and comparative labour law, human rights law and anti-discrimination law. Her experience include the management of research and publication projects. She has also been Visiting Fellow in the Law Department of the European University Institute, at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and at Stellenbosch University.
She holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy).
Recent publications:
- 'The Contribution of the ILO’s International Labour Standards System to the European Court of Human Rights’ Jurisprudence in the Field of Non-Discrimination’, in 49 Industrial Law Journal, 2020, pp. 86-112
- ‘Labour Rights and the Case Law of the European Court of Justice: What Role for International Labour Standards?’, in 9 European Labour Law Journal, 2018, pp. 236-262.
- ‘Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100)’, in E. Ales, M. Bell, O. Deinert and S. Robin-Olivier (eds.), International and European Labour Law: A Commentary, Nomos, Beck and Hart Publishing, 2018, pp. 602-611.
- ‘Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111)’, in E. Ales, M. Bell, O. Deinert and S. Robin-Olivier (eds.), International and European Labour Law: A Commentary, Nomos, Beck and Hart Publishing, 2018, pp. 612-630.
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Gaëlle Bossi is a translator and editor. She holds a diploma in translation and a certificate of terminology from the École de traduction et d’interprétation of the University of Geneva. She joined the Research Department in 2015 as the senior French editor for the International Labour Review. Prior to that, she was a freelance translator working for various international organisations and private clients and specializing in employment issues, human rights, sociological research and surveys. She also worked for the University of Geneva as teaching assistant.
Officers in the field
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Recent publications:
- Drivers of Private Saving in Sub-Saharan African Countries, Journal of Economic Development, 41(2), pp. 77-110, 2016.
Recent publications:
- Youth and rural development: Evidence from 25 school-to-work transition surveys
- Young and female – a double strike? Gender analysis of school-to-work transition surveys in 32 developing countries
- Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015: Scaling up investments in decent jobs for youth
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Hugo actively maintains a broad research agenda based in two main topics: education and labor markets, with a special focus on gender and ethnic inequalities. His research has been published in different specialized academic journals and books (http://ideas.repec.org/e/pno16.html). Hugo is also a sporadic op-ed collaborator in various media outlets. Currently, he is also a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, and board member of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).
Recent publications:
Journal articles
- "How do Latin American migrants in the U.S. stand on schooling premium? What does it reveal about education quality in their home countries?” with Daniel Alonso-Soto. International Journal of Manpower. 39 (6), 855-879. 2018.
- “Broken gears: the value added of higher education on teachers’ academic achievement” with Carlos Felipe Balcazar. Higher Education. 72 (3), 341-361. 2016.
- "Measuring the Relative Pay of School Teachers in Latin America 1997-2007." With Alejandra Mizala. International Journal of Educational Development.47, 20-32. 2016.
- “New Century, Old Disparities. Gender and Ethnic Earnings Gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean” World Bank Publications. ISBN 0821386867. 352pp. September 2012.
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