Benjamín Villena Roldán
I am an Associate Professor at the Institute for Economic Policies, Universidad Andres Bello (Santiago, Chile).
My current research interests are Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, and Political Economy.
Here you can find my C.V.
I am a principal researcher in the Nucleus LM2C2 (Labor Market Mismatch: Causes and Consequences) and an adjunct researcher of the MIPP (Millenium Institute on Market Imperfections and Public Policy)
I am also co-director of the SABE project (Sistema de Análisis de Bolsas de Empleo), which gathers and harmonizes real-time data from job ads and applicants from multiple online job boards in Chile and classify demand and supply side into occupations using machine learning techniques.
These are profiles in: Google Scholar, RePeC, SSRN, Research Gate, ORCID, Scopus.
Contact: benjamin (at) benjaminvillena.com
News
Nov 22, 2024: I presented our paper "Local Government Networks and Disaster Risk Reduction Investments" at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Nov 14, 2024: I presented our paper "What s/he wants in a job" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Nov 11, 2024: I am visiting the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago.
Nov 5, 2024: I participated in a discussion panel on Flexibility in the Labor Market, an activity jointly organized by LM2C2 and M-NEW research institutes.
Oct 30, 2024: El Mercurio quoted excerpts of my opinions in an article on the recent reduction of young people who neither work nor study.
Oct 30, 2024: I presented our paper Working hours policy reform: micro and macro impacts (with M. Tejada) at the 2024 Workshop in Program Evaluation.
Oct 29, 2024: La Tercera publishes my views on the reasons for the low growth of the Chilean economy in the last decade.
Oct 28, 2024: We just finished a revised version of our paper Wage Cyclicality Revisited: the Role of Hiring Standards, currently in a second round at the Review of Economic Studies.
Oct 24, 2024: I was interviewed on Tele13 Radio on the implications of exchanging legal holidays for vacations in Chile. We also talked about unemployment and labor participation among the youth.
Oct 24, 2024: I was featured in this article in La Tercera on the structural informality rate in the Chilean economy, its relevance, and implications.
Oct 23, 2024: I was invited to present at the Tercer Congreso Crítico de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas organized by students of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Chile. I summarized some of my research in online job boards and the SABE project.
Oct 7, 2024: Column in La Tercera on legal holidays and productivity.
Oct 1, 2024: Interview in CNN Chile on the current situation of labor informality in Chile.
Oct 1, 2024: Featured in Publimetro and La Segunda on the recently released unemployment data in Chile.
Sept 27, 2024: Note in La Tercera with my opinions on the causes of youth unemployment.
Sept 26-27, I co-organized the XXVI Workshop in International Economics and Finance, a joint effort by Universidad Andres Bello, Central Bank of Chile, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and Becker Friedman Institute.
Sept 25, 2025: My new column on reducing legal holidays to increase vacation days in La Segunda.
Sept 10, 2024: I gave a brief talk at a joint seminar given by Fundación Grandes and the Institute for Public Policies (IPP) UNAB on the integenerational integration at work.
Sept 6, 2024: I presented our paper "Working hours policy reform: micro and macro impacts" (with M. Tejada) at the Society of Chilean Economists Annual Meeting in Concepción, Chile.
Sept 2, 2024: Portrayed in a note in Publimetro on the surpringing IMACEC (monthly proxy GDP) of July 2024.