Research

PhD Project:

Supervisors: Dr Alejandra Irigoin from Economic History and Dr Tim Besley from the Economics Department.
My PhD project comprises three key areas:

-A study of the impact of colonization on development, focusing on countries' institutional capacity, or lack thereof, to provide the public goods essential for long-term growth and build a socio-political contract that checks elite power and inequalities in general.

-A study of the economic effects of constitutions, studying how various political systems—from autocratic regimes to presidential and parliamentary democracy —affect development by enabling or hindering the creation of the "credible commitments" and “political arrangements” necessary for progress (e.g., via promoting a sound fiscal contract, investments, and trust).

-A study of the epistemology of development economics. Drawing inspiration from Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge, my goal is to assess how economic conditions, crises, and international power relations affect knowledge production, going from discursive formations (narratives) to the framing of the role of agents, markets, and the state in research.

Working Papers

Irarrázaval (2023). “The Pillars of Shared Prosperity: Insights from Elite versus State Extraction and From a New Instrument” [Forthcoming]. University of Chile´s Economics Department Working Papers 

Irarrázaval, Andrés (2020) The fiscal origins of comparative inequality levels: an empirical and historical investigation. Economic History Working Papers (314). London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. [Find here the latest version of this WP, available at the University of Chile's Economics Department Working Papers, November 2022] 

Martin, N; Irarrazaval, A; Williamson (2019), “Recognition – An OECD Perspective: Policy report contributing to the challenge paper on inequality and exclusion” Pathfinders/New York University Center on International Cooperation Publishing, New York

Policy Reports

Co-author - OECD (2021), Enhancing economic performance and well-being in Chile (2021). Please see Policy Action Reports on: pharmaceuticals, food, ports & labour conditions and telecommunications. OECD Publishing, Paris. 

Co-author - OECD (2019), Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development 2019: Empowering People and Ensuring Inclusiveness and Equality, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Presentations:

May 2024 [Forthcoming] RIDGE-LACEA  May Forum "Inequality and Poverty" Workshop, Institute of Economy, Universidad Católica, Santiago (Chile).

February 2024, Seminar of Political Economy and Economic History (SPEECH), London School of Economics (LSE), Economics Department. London (UK).

February 2024, International Inequality Institute (III) Doctoral Seminar, LSE III. London (UK). 

January 2023: Economic History Sessions. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez [UAI], Santiago, Chile. 

December 2023: IEA World Congress. International Economic Association (IEA). Medellin, Colombia.

July  2023: Tsinghua University IIAS Forum "Coping with Inequality: Reforms and Challenges in Latin America". Beijing, China

April 2023: University of Chile´s Economics Department (DECON) Seminar. Santiago de Chile.

December 2022: Research Institute for Development, Growth, and Economics (RIDGE) Forum, University of Los Andes. Bogotá, Colombia. 

November 2022: Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) International Conference (n. IX). Diego Portales University. Santiago de Chile.
[Please see slides here]

October 2022: Economic History Sessions, Department of History, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Chile. Santiago de Chile.
[Please see Slides in Spanish] 

July 2022: World Economic History Congress (WEHC), Session “Politics and Inequality in Latin America”. Paris, France
[Please see slides here]

November 2021: Universidad de Chile´s Economics Department (DECON) Seminar. Santiago de Chile.
[Please see slides here]