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 since. 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.
Research interests
My main research interest is the study of the causes and consequences of conflict. I analyzed the relationship between religious and ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and conflict and development. I have also worked on the effectiveness of foreign aid and on the relationship between poverty and civil war and on the study of the institutional designs that may prevent or mitigate, such social conflicts. In particular I construct a database on the characteristics of leaders over the 20th century and I investigated whether there are systematic differences in the type of leaders that can explain the economic development of countries. More recently I am using administrative data on the first colonizers of Latin America to reexamine the issue of institutions versus human capital in the explanation of economic development and conflict. Moreover I am starting a line of research on the analysis of Development and Conflict using Big Data. In particular I am working on the construction of new measures of inequality.
Selected publications
- Aspachs O, Graziano A, Mestres J, Montalvo JG & Reynal-Querol M 2024, 'Spending response to cash transfers to shield households from inflation: Evidence from bank accounts', Economics letters, 238 -111684.
Selected research activities
2024: Medalla Narcís Monturiol, Generalitat de Catalunya.
PI of LLAVOR, Ajutsd’Indústria del Coneixement (IdC). 2024LLAVOR00032
ERC-Advanced Grant (2022-2027)
Co-PI of the Spanish National Science Foundation Grant, PID2023-150768NB-I00
Co-organizer of the workshop “Political Economy of Development and Conflict”
Invited speaker, Workshop on Geographical and Political Determinants of Spatial Development, St.Gallen, Switzerland
Research Professor, BSE, since December 2016;
Fellow of the EEA since 2015.
Research Fellow CEPR since 2012;
Full Member EUDN (European Development Network) since 2012; Research Fellow CESifo, since 2013;
Editorial Board, Journal of Conflict Resolution, March 2007-present.
Director of IPEG, since December 2016
Director of the Master in Economics (BarcelonaGSE-UPF), since September 2012