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I am currently a Full Professor of Public Policy at the London School of Economics,  a CEPR fellow and a senior non-resident fellow at Bruegel, having just returned to academia after a stint in politics. Previously, I spent a decade at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where I reached the position of Full Professor of Economics and Strategy, and another at the London School of Economics as Full Professor at the departments of Management and Economics. I was later a Professor of Economics and Strategy at IE Business School in Madrid. I have served as a visiting professor at MIT, Columbia Business School, and London Business School. 

My research studies the organization of knowledge, of talent and of specialization and its impact on productivity and economic growth. It has featured in top academic journals including the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review and the Review of  Economic Studies.

I have also developed a stream of more applied policy research on how to improve Europe's institutions to prevent new economic crises in the Eurozone and to be ready for the climate transition. I was part of the group of European economists advocating for the creation of European Safe Bonds (ESBies/SBBS), a proposal later  taken up as legislation by the European Commission. Currently, I am working on a book about the interaction between fiscal and monetary policies in the Eurozone.

From 2019, I stepped out of academia to become a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). As the vice-president of the centrist parliamentary grouping RenewEurope, I oversaw economic affairs and coordinated our parliamentary work on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. My responsibilities included leading the appointment and parliamentary control of ECB authorities and financial supervisors, and I was involved in rule-making in economic, financial, banking and anti-money laundering areas. I worked very hard to produce ideas and implement them as legislation to address the fiscal, financial, and political challenges faced by the Economic and Monetary Union during the pandemic. Furthermore, I contributed as a shadow rapporteur to the legislation implementing the Eurobond-financed program, the Recovery and Reconstruction Facility (Regulation (EU) 2021/241), launched by the European Union. I was also a member of the executive board in charge of Economic and Social Policy at Ciudadanos, a centrist party in Spain.

I have bachelor’s degrees in Economics (1990) and in Law (1991) from Universidad de Valladolid, a Master's in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (1992), and a Master's (1995) and Ph.D. (1998) in Economics from the University of Chicago .  Additionally, I've been a regular columnist for Spanish media (El Pais for many years, and now El Mundo). I have also contributed occasional opinion pieces to non-Spanish media such as the Financial Times, the WSJ, the Economist and Le Monde.