Marta Reynal-Querol is an ICREA Research Professor at the Dep. of Econ. and Bus. at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and RP at the BSE. She is also an Aff. Prof. at the BSE, and Director of the Master in Economics at UPF. She is the Director of IPEG . She is a Research Fellow at the CEPR, a Research Fellow at the CEsifo and a Full Member at the EUDN. She is Fellow of the EEA. She was member of the Council of the European Economic Association (EEA) between 2011 and 2015. She won an ERC-Advanced grant in 2022, and ERC-Consolidator grant in 2014 and also an ERC-Starting grant obtained in the first call of the European Research Council. In 2024 she was awarded by the Government of Catalonia “La Medalla Narcís Monturiol for scientific and technological merit”. She is “Premi Jaume I Economia 2022”. She won the Banco Herrero prize 2011. She worked at the World Bank between 2001 and 2005. She holds a Ph. D. in Economics from the LSE (2001) and a Master with Honor from UPF.

My primary research agenda investigates the determinants and ramifications of conflict and economic development. Specifically, I analyze the interplay between religious and ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and their subsequent effects on stability and growth. A significant portion of my work focuses on political agency. I compiled a comprehensive dataset on leader characteristics spanning the 20th century to investigate how heterogeneity in leadership styles influences national economic trajectories. Currently, I am revisiting the debate regarding institutions versus human capital by leveraging administrative data on the early colonizers of Latin America. Furthermore, I am expanding into the use of Big Data to construct novel measures of inequality. Finally, in an interdisciplinary effort, I am utilizing facial analysis techniques to explore the correlation between biological markers of masculinity in leaders and their decision-making patterns.