Welcome to the site of Álvaro E. Bustos    

I am an associate professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), Management School, one of the Directors of the Center of Corporate Governance UC (CGC-UC) and a permanent co-organizer of the Latinoamerican Workshop in Law and Economics (LAWLE). I specialize in the areas of Law and Economics (Judicial Politics, Comparative Law, Constitutional Economics, Courts and Institutions) and Industrial Organization (Regulation, Corporate Governance). My work has been published in The Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, American Law and Economics Review and The Journal of Development Economics, among other journals. I have worked or am currently working on the following topics:

• Constitutional Law and Judicial Politics: I am studying the reasons why countries approve or reject new political constitutions. In addition, I have researched the role that ideology plays on the U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decisions to select cases, vote in given cases and retire from the Court. 

• Antitrust and Regulation: I researched vertical integration in regulated markets, price setting in Chilean public utilities and the impact of taxes on the aggregate demand for capital. 

• Litigation, Civil Procedure and Judicial Decision Making:  I am currently researching the effects (over judicial decisions and litigating decisions) of restricting access to Chilean higher courts in the context of labor disputes. In the past, I researched the impact of reputation and legal doctrines in the judicial decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as the welfare impact of limits in damage compensations.

• Comparative Law: I researched the reasons for differences in rates of access to higher courts worldwide and the link between court’s ideological stability and legal stability.

• Corporate Governance: I am currently studying the dynamics in the adoption of best corporate governance practices when regulation takes the form of Comply or Explain. I am also researching the impact that corporate scandals and new regulations had over the Chilean market for corporate directors in the period of 2005 to 2019. Since 2009 I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Center of Corporate Governance UC, an academic platform that supports discussion and research of topics related to Corporate Governance. Visit the CGC webpage here. 

•  Business Strategy: I am currently studying the optimal pricing strategies followed by firms that operate in markets with externalities and in which demand can be separated.   

• Law and Economics: In addition to the previous work, much of which can be broadly classified in the area of Law and Economics, I am also a permanent co-organizer of the annual Latinoamerican Workshop in Law and Economics (LAWLE). LAWLE aims to support the development of theoretical and applied research in Law and Economics in the region. The original LAWLE alliance was integrated by ITAM, U Andes Colombia, University of Brasilia and PUC de Chile; since 2020, George Mason University is also part of the alliance. While the first LAWLE took place in 2014 in Santiago, Chile, LAWLE-2024 will take place in Santiago, Chile. Visit LAWLE webpage here.

Check here to see a representative list of my publications and here to see a representative list of my work in progress.