Paula Bustos is an ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Affiliated Professor of the Barcelona School of Economics, a Fellow of the European Economic Association, Chair of the EEA Women in Economics Committee, CEPR Research Fellow and Co-leader of Trade and Spatial Frictions Theme of the STEG-CEPR program. She obtained her PhD in Economics at Harvard University and her BA at Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Argentina. She studies the economic effects of climate change, new agricultural technologies and international market integration. Her work has been published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Her research on agricultural productivity and structural transformation has been funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council in 2017. Her new research on adjustment to climate change in developing countries has been funded by a Consolidator Grant in 2023.

My research can be described as empirical investigations in economic development guided by international trade theory. My first line of research studied the effects of a regional free trade agreement between Argentina and Brazil. I showed that it induced firms to export and innovate but reduced the demand for unskilled labor in the manufacturing sector. A second line of research studies the effect of the adoption of new agricultural technologies, such as GM crops, on economic development in Brazil. Unskilled workers lost their jobs in agriculture but reallocated to the local manufacturing sector. This inflow of unskilled workers reduced local innovation and growth. However, agricultural productivity growth also led to savings and capital flows towards urban regions where it financed the expansion of the manufacturing and service sectors. A recent line of research studies the effects of climate change on labor and capital allocation across sectors and regions in Brazil.